


Soldier's Bride

by moonflour



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, Non-Consensual, Non-Consensual Touching, Possessive Behavior, noncon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 20
Words: 47,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21737584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflour/pseuds/moonflour
Summary: In a post-S.H.I.E.L.D., post-Endgame world, everyone managed to survive, but Hydra resurfaces with new alliances. They manage to revive the Winter Soldier and turn him to their side. The new evil wants more superhuman weapons to control and utilize in its mission to change the world for the worst. Leanna, previously of S.H.I.E.L.D., finds herself held captive by the new age evil, their desire to use her suitable genetics to test the process of developing enhanced superhumans for their own disposal.
Relationships: Natasha Romanov/OFC, Steve Rogers/OFC, The Winter Soldier/OFC
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

Natasha’s red hair flashes as she rushes Leanna into a cold room where there are mirrors every which way she turns. The walls are completely made of it, the white marble floor chilly beneath Leanna’s socked feet. They’d given no explanation for what was going on. She’d merely been ripped from her cell and handed off to Natasha. The fierceness with which Natasha begins to whisper causes Leanna’s pulse to quicken.

“It’s important that you do as you’re told. This is the last chance you will be given.”

Leanna knew exactly what the redhead meant by that. If she wasn’t found useful for missions, she would fulfill her role in other ways. Noncompliance meant elimination.

“For what?” Leanna whispers back just as fiercely.

“I can’t help you with what happens next. I can…get to you. I’ll be able to see you, but that’s about it.”

“I wish you would just tell me what’s happening,” Leanna begs.

“They’re going to kill me—aren’t they? Just _tell_ me.” Tears grace Leanna’s cheeks and Natasha wipes them away hastily with her knuckles. Natasha’s eyes dart towards the door. Someone was coming.

“Just do as you’re told and nothing happens to you. Okay? It’s not over yet. I’m still working on it.”

A shrewd looking but gorgeous Asian woman with a tight blonde bun waltzes into the room and what she’s carrying causes Leanna to raise her eyebrows in confusion. It’s a white dress. If she didn’t know any better, it was a…wedding dress?

“Strip,” the woman instructs, walking towards a coat rack which appears oddly out of place. She hangs the gown.

It all begins to make sense now, why Natasha had taken her measurements earlier that day. All this time, Leanna had thought she was being fitted for a straitjacket or a cat suit. She would have gladly donned the latter. She was wrong.

“Why do I have to put that on?”

Natasha takes a few steps back towards the door, crossing her arms. The woman turns to stare at Leanna warningly. Despite having this uncomfortable gaze on her, she starts to pull down the yellow pants and tear off the matching yellow top. For once she wasn’t going to feel like a prisoner. She’s made to relinquish the bra she’s wearing as well, the underwear following suit.

“So…I have to marry someone? That’s the mission? Who?”

The woman crosses her arms and tells Leanna to turn around so that she can zip the dress. And in that moment, Leanna catches a glimpse of herself in the white gown. It contrasts from her olive skin and hazel eyes. Her hair is scraggly in comparison, and she finds herself wishing she had a brush. The A-line gown hugs Leanna in all the right places, and the lace back and trunk of the dress reveal her skin in less modest ways than she ever imagined a wedding gown might, but she can’t help thinking that it looks damn good. As she glances out of the corners of her eyes at Natasha, who appears to be nearly smiling (something the redhead rarely did), the thought is confirmed.

A few words are exchanged between the unnamed woman and Natasha, all in Russian, leaving Leanna out of the conversation. But Natasha’s nodding somehow puts Leanna’s mind at ease.

“Off,” the woman states, after gently unzipping her. Leanna carefully steps outside of the dress. She is left in her underwear, and clutching her breasts, she reaches for the yellow monstrosity she had stripped out of moments prior. But the woman grabs the items. She hands them to Natasha, and tells her something else in Russian. Natasha gazes hard at Leanna, standing there almost completely naked. And the woman barks with irritation, shooing Natasha towards the door. The lady exits and Natasha’s eyes widen. She can’t say anything more to Leanna with the woman within earshot, but she sends an extraordinarily apologetic glance Leanna’s way before leaving the room.

She closes the door with a somewhat resounding slam. Leanna sighs. And for the first time, she gazes up at the ceilings. Spotting a camera in the corner of the room, she feels violated. She glares at it before serving her middle finger. She paces back and forth. Perhaps they’re bringing another dress. She paces in her socked feet, staring at the door. She goes for it and finds immediately that it is locked. Natasha’s doing. She knows deep down that Natasha had not wanted to lock her in this room. These mirrors are making Leanna crazy. Every which way she turns, she’s forced to see her anxious reflection. And finally, she hears someone coming. But the sound is not that of high heels, nor is the gait familiar to Leanna.

At last the door opens and Leanna can hear whispering on the other side, again in Russian. The door is open just a crack, not enough for her to see anyone. The voice of the blonde woman is familiar to her, but whoever she is speaking to is not Natasha. In fact, it’s a man’s voice. One which Leanna has heard only a handful of times before. And her thoughts are flooded with flashbacks of Steve and gunfire, and…Bucky? Leanna takes a few steps backwards, realizing that he’s about to walk into this room. The only thing she’s wearing are socks and a pair of underwear. Her heart rate doesn’t slow down as she listens to this conversation, wishing she had spent more time trying to learn Russian instead of Farsi. The two exchange laughs and then the door opens enough that she sees him. His gaze is set dead in her direction the moment he walks through the door.

Leanna backs up further, until her skin makes contact with a cold mirrored wall and she stumbles, losing grip of her breasts momentarily. The blood rushing to her face feels like fire. In his shiny and terrifying massive metal hand appears to be a fresh set of ugly yellow clothing.

“Легко (easy),” he says gently. Despite his terrifying appearance, his eyes are so gentle. He pauses where he stands, aware that he has frightened her. Why the devil wouldn’t they have sent Natasha in to give her these new clothes? Terror invades Leanna’s whole being momentarily. Assuming that she’s about to be raped, she does the next best thing she can think of, seeing as the coat rack is too far away to get to. Turning around and kicking the wall made of mirror behind her, she causes a shower of shattered pieces to fly. She dips immediately to pick up a shard. And when she gazes up at Bucky, he has both hands up, as if to surrender or something. She’s breathing heavily, scared out of her mind, naked.

“Легко,” he says again gently. And she stands slowly, her hand already dripping with blood.

“Don’t come near me,” she warns, wondering whether he even understands her now. He probably does, but she can’t be sure. He was Hydra’s again, after all. He points slowly to the clothes he had placed on the floor when Leanna turned around to shatter a mirror.

“Okay,” he says, knowing she understands that. His eyes don’t even wander to her nudity, at least not for a handful of seconds. And when his eyes finally do wander, Leanna finds herself further disturbed.

“Don’t come near me,” She says again. She wonders whether somewhere behind all that armor, he is getting hard. He isn’t smiling, but appears pleased with what he’s seeing. He takes a few steps closer and Leanna braces herself to attack.

“Okay,” he says again gently, both hands out as if to plead with her. She couldn’t be sure that he meant no harm. Leanna swipes with each step that the soldier takes, hoping he realizes she’s serious, but he disarms her so quickly that she barely blinks. And she winces as her hand continues to bleed. His cold metal prosthetic grips her wrist and he reaches with his flesh hand into his pocket, pulling out some kind of a kerchief. It’s black and oddly soft, not something she would have guessed to be in his pocket. He gazes down into her eyes, speaking to her again. She has no idea what the fuck he’s saying, but his voice is so sweet that it doesn’t seem to match him. It’s almost like he cares for her, a cloying sweetness that just about calms her nerves. Leanna watches in confusion as the soldier forces her to open her bleeding palm. She winces reluctantly.

He stares her in the eyes for a handful of seconds, pocketing the kerchief again before carefully, ever so carefully, pulling a small shard of mirror from the wound Leanna had inflicted on herself. She winces loudly the entire time he does this. The sound of her agony doesn’t appear to bother him in the least, which scares her. By now it’s clear to Leanna that he’s not going to hurt her. It makes him no less intimidating as he towers above her, staring into her eyes. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought he was trying to say something without actually saying it. The way he was looking at her was indescribable. She shivers and Bucky realizes that it’s not just because she’s scared. He glances casually at the clothes he had dropped on the floor.

“Please,” she whispers.

He looks so sorry all of a sudden. He reaches for the kerchief in his pocket again and gently wraps it around Leanna’s hand. She continues to wince. He ties it off, afterwards grabbing her wrist again.

“Let go,” she says, so quietly she almost doesn’t hear herself. Bucky’s eyes feast on her nudity again, this time his eyes flitting everywhere with a desperation that makes her want to kick him in the groin.

“ _Let—go_.” He isn’t listening to her now, and she can’t help but feel utterly violated as the expression on his face twists into one of primal lust. His grip is solid when Leanna tries to retrieve her limb.

“мой собственный (my own),” he says, his ocean eyes widening and flitting back and forth between her breasts, up and down her torso and legs.

“Let go!” she says, pulling harder. He seems to snap out of it then, releasing her wrist, but she had pulled away so hard that she started to fall back. She gasps at the chill of his metal limb as it contacts her torso. He had caught her before she could fall into the glass and incur further injury. Leanna pulls at his arms, and suddenly he grins.

“Stop,” he says, lifting her bodily out of the puddle of glass beneath her. She would have cut her feet. He places her right next to the clothes he had brought. Finally, Leanna slaps him. Despite doing so as hard as she can, the soldier’s cheek barely turns. He glares off in the direction his gaze had landed and she finally slips out of his grasp. Leanna grabs the clothes off the floor and hurries away from him into a new corner. The soldier appears to be staring in a mirror now. He presses a hand to his cheek, almost as if pleased that Leanna had touched him of her own volition. She starts to hurry into the shirt and by the time she pulls it over her head, the soldier is looking her way again.

“Bucky,” she says, pleadingly. She hopes that calling him that will somehow snap him out of whatever delirium he is in. But he looks at her hard and emptily for a handful of seconds. He takes a few more steps towards her. She braces herself for whatever is coming, but he stops about a foot away from her. She turns her head away from him as he reaches out with his flesh hand to brush some hair out of her face.

“Leanna,” he says dreamily. She closes her eyes. Tears finally stream down her face. She flinches when something cold begins to brush them away. She peeks to find his metal hand in her face, at which she gasps. Looking apologetic, he rips his hand away and starts for the door.

“James…?” he pauses upon hearing this name.

“James, are you in there…? Do you remember me?”

His head cocks to the side, turning slightly, but he never looks back at her. Leanna’s eyes wander off towards the mirrored wall where he’s looking at himself again. He stares for a handful of seconds, during which time Leanna pleads with him again to remember her.

“Steve,” she says desperately. And Bucky’s eyes close. He shakes his head a moment, muttering under his breath in something that sounds like neither Russian nor English. And finally, he rushes for the door.

“James!”

He never stops and when she’s left alone, the door locks behind him. Whatever is coming next, she can only hope will be no worse than where she is now.


	2. Chapter 2

The soldier tucks the hair behind her ear. She blushes furiously and looks away from him. Until his cold metal hand grips her chin and forces her to look at him. He whispers something to her in Russian. Something she had heard one of the guards say while locking her cell, the creepy one who always winked at her and looked at her like she was something to eat. She knew that it meant she was beautiful, and she blushed. Leanna kept her eyes cast down. Looking into Bucky’s bright blue gaze makes her feel like she’s gazing into the sun. The entire time she stands before him in front of what must be a thousand people, his grip is locked on her waist. She knows she couldn’t have run if she had tried to. She doesn’t understand what’s being said, but if the man before them is in fact a priest, Leanna is certain he knows she’s being forced to do this.

She doesn’t have to keep staring out into the crowd to know that this is Hydra. Hydra and another new organization that had joined forces with the same goal in mind, one which Leanna has not entirely figured out just yet. There is no veil, and she refuses to keep looking into the soldier’s eyes. So, she closes them. His grip tightens somewhat painfully and she opens them again, gazes desperately at the priest for a moment, and gazes up at Bucky, who doesn’t appear to be human anymore. He’s cold and robotic, tilting his head to look into her eyes out from under his eyebrows. This movement has shrouded his face in darkness. He’s damn near demonic, like someone else is controlling him. Every time she tries to close her eyes again, he squeezes her to a point of discomfort until she opens them again. Had he wanted to, he could have snapped her at the waist, crushed her ribcage. She couldn’t run, she couldn’t fight. She caught a glimpse of Natasha somewhere in the crowd. She looked as though she regretted everything, not having managed to get Leanna out of here. A few other faces Leanna recognized, coworkers and double agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. those traitors. And those were the faces that were smiling. There were no rings, just repeats of words, and Bucky didn’t try to kiss her on the lips. But he did plant a kiss lingeringly on her forehead, an act which caused Leanna to rage on the inside. She just wanted to slap him, snap him out of this.

He held her a little too tightly as they walked down the aisle and while they danced, as if he knew that she would try to run or fight had he let go for just a second. He didn’t seem to want to let anyone near her, especially the men who asked for a dance, which he let them have reluctantly. She wasn’t given anything to drink, an oddity in Leanna’s mind. Because everyone else was raising their glasses, while she was stuck with sparkling water. Not even the soldier touched the alcohol. He kept her monitored the whole night. If he didn’t have her by his side with his arm around her, he was watching her like a hawk. She barely got a word in with Natasha. Leanna broke under the loudness of the music while dancing with Natasha. Natasha had whispered fiercely to her not to cry. She couldn’t show weakness. And Leanna sucked it up.

Leanna was thinking about Steve. She didn’t know if he’d ever be able to rescue her. She wasn’t even sure he was still in the same time period. Did he know what was happening to her? Leanna missed him dreadfully. His warmth and gentleness. He had been her comfort for some time before S.H.I.E.L.D. was figured out for what it really was. Natasha is the only link to the real world. But even then, Leanna wasn’t sure just how much contact was getting to the outside. Steve had always been protective and sweet to her. Bucky had hurt Leanna throughout the ceremony, holding her in place like his damn life depended on her standing there. And maybe it did…Steve would have fucked Bucky up good if he saw that, whether he was under mind control or not. The next song begins to play, an array of string instruments filling Leanna’s ears. She glances over Natasha’s shoulder at the main table where Bucky had been watching her from to find that he is no longer sitting there. And she gasps when she feels him tug her by the waist. She’s getting sick of this.

Bucky pretty much tears Leanna away from Natasha. He seemed to be fed up with how much they were talking, even though they tried to be discreet about it. He was watching her _every fucking move_ and it became clear to Leanna that he didn’t want her talking to anyone. He says something to her impatiently in Russian and she just glares at him as he guides her back to the table where they had been sitting.

“Fuck you,” Leanna says, knowing that Bucky can hear her. He spares her a blank glance for about three solid seconds before someone to his right taps his shoulder and instigates a conversation with him. Leanna steals the opportunity to stand and walk a few short paces to a table nearby where a server is passing through some people with a tray of crystalline glasses. Leanna reaches for one and sips it as fast as she can, grabbing another before the server can make it away from her. But before she even finishes the first one, a shiny large hand yanks the drinks out of hers. It had caught Leanna off balance and scared her how fast it happened. The glasses shatter on the floor not far from her and the soldier grips the back of her neck tightly. Leanna winces. No one seems to care that the glasses shattered. The music is almost too loud to notice.

The soldier casually pulls Leanna into a hug, easing up on the back of her neck. A save, because a few people were starting to look from a table nearby. He glares down at her warningly and Leanna glares back at him. He was getting impatient with her, and she could tell. He doesn’t say anything but leads her back to their head table and pulls her chair out for her, gesturing for her to sit down. This time, he stands behind her chair, having pushed her in, continuing his conversation with the man who had gotten his attention moments before she took off. His cold metal hand massages her shoulder, and though this touch isn’t rough, it’s enough of a warning to Leanna that she isn’t going to try and stand up again. Leanna catches a glimpse from the corner of her eye of this guy talking to Bucky. He places a vial of some sort in the pocket of Bucky’s blazer. Something tells her that he knows it. She starts wondering what it is. Is it something he’s planning to use on her tonight?

Once the conversation is over, Bucky drags her chair back and offers his hand so she can stand. Leanna rejects it, standing up and wanting to get out of the heels she’s been wearing for hours. Bucky wraps an arm around her waist and starts leading her away from the party. She glances back to try and catch a glimpse of Natasha, but she’s nowhere to be found and Bucky gets impatient with her again and tugs her along, causing her to trip.

“ _Come here_ ,” he says angrily, swiping her in front of him. He picks up her shoe and makes her keep walking with one heel on. He’s leading her outside and she begins to worry about what will happen next. He just seems eager to get her alone all of a sudden. A black limo awaits them and the door is pulled open by the driver. Leanna can no longer hear the voices, but the music is faint, and she steps intentionally out of her other heel and makes a run for it, just around the limo and across a lawn. She can feel the wind whipping the dress, which is slowing her down. But with lost hope, she hears the soldier stampeding behind her. Her legs are knocked out from under her and she can’t tell up from down until she realizes that the soldier has got her over his shoulders. She beats angrily at his back, which barely seems to bother him. Leanna fights when he starts to force her into the limo. A few familiar faces of the guards from her cell appear and she knows that even if she managed to get out of the soldier’s grip, fleeing a second time wouldn’t have been possible.

She starts to scream and something pricks her neck. She glances to the side to find that one of the guards has injected her with something. Bucky is pressing her hard against the car, telling her in Russian to relax. He doesn’t sound so angry now. In fact, he appears to be trying to calm her. Almost instantly, the night around her begins to cloud and she loses her balance, at which point Bucky picks her up and places her inside the limo before sliding in beside her and closing the door.

She’s out for most of the ride, but at some points she seems to break through the sedative, and at those moments, she finds herself gazing at the ceiling of the limo, other times gazing at Bucky’s face above her. She thought there was a bug crawling on her, but she occasionally caught glimpses of that shiny hand touching her shoulder, grabbing her hip, caressing her hair. She even felt his lips on her face a few times. She knew for sure then that something was going to happen that she didn’t want.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, spacing didn't copy and paste from Microsoft Word very well. Sigh.

When Leanna comes to, she’s in a new location. The lights are dim. Immediately, she gags, and in a moment, she finds her head and torso in Bucky’s hands as he holds her hair back, having positioned her over a waste bin. She only throws up a little bit, spitting thoroughly. He gently allows her to lie down again and she feels the bed shift as he stands, leaving it. She can hear the sound of water pouring. Whatever sedative she’d been given, it was intense. She can’t find her legs for a while. But Bucky leans her up against himself to help her drink, and she does. She spits into the bin again. Why was he helping her so much? He had clearly been prepared for her to be sick. It was as if he was waiting for her to wake up. Once Leanna can sit up on her own again, Bucky sits beside her and starts talking to her. The way he keeps running his hand down her back is making he uncomfortable.

“I don’t understand you,” she interrupts, after almost a full two minutes or so, scratching her neck where she’d been injected.

“Speak English.”

Her hair has come loose a bit, her head aching where pins were keeping things in place. Bucky gazes at her hungrily. Leanna looks to find that her cleavage has begun to escape the dress. She shifts the strap, pulling it back up. The soldier pulls it back down.

“I don’t want you to touch me,” she says with irritation, closing her eyes a moment and inching away from him. But he clasps her around the waist, pulling her towards himself, beginning to unzip the dress at the back.

“Inside you,” he says, pressing his chilly metal palm below her navel. She stands from the bed abruptly and starts for the bathroom door, the dress dragging across the floor. Leanna barely makes it to the door when something stops her. She glances back to find that Bucky has collected the tail of the dress. She tugs at it and he doesn’t budge. He looks at her longingly, like some kind of puppy. She tugs harder and Bucky pulls more of the dress until it tears as she fights back. Bucky’s tugging had caused her to fall on the floor rather hard. His eyes are wide as he looks at the material in his hands. His brows furrow into frustration and Leanna immediately begins to crawl for the bathroom door.

She doesn’t know why she thought she’d have been able to escape. He easily rushes towards her and removes her bodily from the floor. He’s carrying her over to the bed. He places her there more gently than she thought he would have.

“I have to,” he says, and she looks at him dumbfounded. It was almost like he only knew select words. Or perhaps he was told not to speak to her in the first place. Maybe he didn’t want to? He hadn’t said anything to her in English since she wasn’t moving fast enough with him away from the reception. She gazes at the piece of cloth on the floor behind him and Natasha’s words echo in her head. _It’s important that you do as you’re told. This is the last chance you will be given_. Suddenly, she’s beginning to understand the soldier’s mission. Bucky’s hand unzips her dress with ease and he pulls it down, revealing Leanna’s naked chest. She shrieks and shoves at him. Why were they making him do this? Leanna screams, falling back in the large bed and attempting to crawl away. But this only helps the soldier get her further out of the dress. She is clambering over the bed when she feels him grab her leg and pull it towards him. She attempts to crawl away again. He says something angrily to her, one of the few words she could understand. He was telling her to stop.

She freezes, listening to the sound of his belt unbuckling, his buttons coming undone. She closes her eyes, shaking her head, hoping she’ll wake up from this nightmare.

“Please,” she whispers, knowing that he can hear her. As stupid as it is, she wishes that he hadn’t ripped the dress. Despite the circumstances, it had made her feel beautiful. Even if she didn’t want to be here. Even if she didn’t want what was coming because it wasn’t happening the way she wanted it to. He looked like he was sorry the entire night, at the altar, as they dined, even as he held her gingerly while they danced. Something told her he didn’t want to hurt her, but something awful would happen if he didn’t do what he had been ordered to do. He was avoiding punishment. When seconds go by and Leanna doesn’t feel anything, she slowly turns around. The soldier is naked now, looking at her like he can’t make up his mind, but his chest is red and he’s aroused. Some of his hair has come loose from the bun it’s in, landing to dust his perfectly sculpted jaw. He’s handsome and terrifying all at once.

“Come here,” he says. Leanna wipes her eyes. She didn’t even realize that she had begun to cry. She shakes her head. The patience leaves his face almost instantly and his cold grip around her ankle isn’t very gentle as he pulls her towards himself again. He reaches for the dress around her calves and finishes pulling it off, tearing it more in the process.

“James,” she says sternly, “ _No…no_.” It should have been clear to Leanna by now that saying his name won’t snap him out of this. He descends upon her like some sort of jaguar, and there is a dark lust in his eyes now. He doesn’t even try to warm her up. She fought, knowing it was useless. The more she pushes him away, the scarier it becomes. He doesn’t let up in trying to force her to lie down. He pushes her hard, distracting her long enough to tear her underwear from her body. It was careless and brutal the way that he pushed her knees in opposite directions and made his way between her legs. She screams and scratches at his face, causing him to expel an irritated growl. She scratches the soldier hard enough to shed blood. This earns Leanna a quick slap with the back of his flesh hand. He hits her hard enough that it stuns her and she can’t see straight for several seconds. During this discombobulation, she feels him force her knees apart again, as she’d begun to squeeze them as tightly as she could. She winces in pain as he forces his stone hard erection inside of her. It hurts like something she hadn’t expected. Even her very first time hadn’t been this tortuous.

Startled by her own voice and the anguish in it, Leanna stops trying to fight him. She realizes now that no matter how trained she is, she isn’t going to overcome his strength. He shushes her, stilling a moment as if to allow her to adjust, despite the fact that he had completely manhandled her. He moans, throwing his head back, a breath catching in his throat. Leanna wishes she had a knife to slit it in this moment. She groans in pain, clutching at his shoulders.

“Please,” she cries, her vision blinded again by tears. She even mutters it in Russian desperately. He trembles uneasily on his elbows above her, and Leanna realizes it has most likely been a long time for him. Perhaps longer than for her. He shivers a second. He gazes down at her a moment before gently swaying his hips. Leanna winces, closing her eyes tightly. His moaning distracts her from the pain only slightly. She pushes on his shoulders and pecks to no avail.

“It hurts,” she cries. He pauses momentarily, sighing, gazing down at her apologetically. It’s almost as if he flashes back and forth between a Jekyll and Hyde. One moment he seems to care, the next he’s frustrated with her, impatient, rough, and malevolent. He continues to thrust somewhat gently. He calls her beautiful again and she hates him with every fiber of her being. She screams, knowing that no one will come to her rescue. He starts to pound into her shortly and she struggles. He’s large and it feels like she’s being split open. Leanna scratches at his face again and he grunts angrily, pinning her hand down. She glares up into his eyes, her mouth agape, yet unable to speak another word. She cut his beautiful face. She isn’t going to let him forget that she doesn’t want this.

She knew he wasn’t going to stop until he finished and tried to leave her body for a while. Minutes go by and it is impossible. His girth overwhelms her and she starts to moan. She had gotten a little wet and it wasn’t as bad now. It didn’t change the fact that she didn’t want it. When she can tell that he’s getting close, she starts to push as hard as she can at his abdomen, squirming beneath him, tacitly begging him as she shakes her head. This frustrates him and he pins her hands down for a few more seconds until finally he comes, pushing as deeply inside of her as he can reach. In this moment, he loses stability a bit, trembling. Leanna manages to crawl out from under him while it’s still happening, causing a trail of his seed to splatter the dark quilt beneath them. She’s trying to catch her breath and gather herself, watching him shake there on his elbows, moaning. He doesn’t seem as bothered by it that she pulled away. He’d still finished inside her enough that Leanna could feel it. She stumbles over the edge of the bed and hurries into the bathroom, slamming the door.

Without even thinking, she turns on the tub and stares in the mirror at the bruise forming on her cheek as the steam begins to fog the mirror. She feels sore internally as she eases herself into a hot marble bathtub. She winces slightly, staring into space for a handful of minutes before crying audibly. She prays that the soldier has left the adjoining room, or at the very least, cannot hear her. She didn’t want to cry anymore, but she finds herself horrified. She starts to wonder whether Natasha knew this was going to happen. Part of Leanna would rather be dead right now. Her body hurts where Bucky had grabbed her. Or was it really even Bucky to begin with? She had seen what appeared to be many moments of clarity, seconds where he was very gentle with her, and it was as if he couldn’t remain that way and break through. She bathes her sore body, taking her dear sweet time.

There are clean clothes for her to change into in the drawers in this bathroom. What exactly was this plan? Was she a toy for the Winter Soldier? His play thing designed to be incentive for completing whatever horrid missions he was ordered to carry out? Little does Leanna realize in her aftershock that she _is_ his mission, one he had tried to complete while holding her down so hard she could barely breathe. He said he had to…were they watching? Could Hydra see everything which had just transpired in the adjoining room? Pondering these questions, Leanna somehow manages to feel even more violated than she had while Bucky was inside of her.

Upon opening the door, she finds the soldier sitting on a loveseat somewhat far from the bed. He appears to be reading something, sitting up straighter when he hears her make her way out of the bathroom. She doesn’t take her eyes off him, his back turned to her as she steps quietly and cautiously towards the bed. His back is strong, and even from this far away, she can see how thoroughly strapping he is, sitting there topless. He needn’t have had a gun to be frightening.

To Leanna’s surprise, her dress is hanging on a hanger just outside the closet. It almost looks as though the soldier had tried to piece it back together; the parts he tore off her flesh are draped carefully along with it. But now Leanna shudders at it. All she can think when looking at it is of him ripping it off her as she screamed. She thinks of running for the door, but knows that this is a locked facility. It wouldn’t surprise her if there were guards posted outside. Did they hear her screaming while the soldier raped her, and stood there to do nothing? She’s well aware of her trapped state. Feeling weak in the knees, yet the pain much number now, Leanna slips hastily under the quilt, covering her whole self. She’s suddenly reminded of hiding from monsters as a child. She listens and waits, and nothing happens. She falls asleep there, hiding from the hollow man in the room.


	4. Chapter 4

Leanna awakens to the sensation of hands on her hips. She blinks awake gradually to find that it’s the early morning hours. She gasps upon realizing that it’s the soldier touching her. She starts to cry instantly. His pale face in the early hours is tinted blue, and she can see that his face has almost completely healed from where she scratched him hours earlier.

“No,” Leanna begs. There’s so much heat resonating off his body that it makes her start to sweat. He pauses in pulling her pants down, staring hard at her navel. Accepting that if she fought it would be worse, Leanna goes limp. As she closes her eyes, tears tickle the shells of her ears. Her pants slip down her legs, and the soldier doesn’t rip them this time. If anything, he’s much gentler. There’s a coolness that greets her below the waist as he carefully removes her underwear. Leanna gasps at the sensation of the soldier unbuttoning her shirt. Once it’s off, she covers her breasts with both her hands. He frowns, pausing to look her in the eyes for several seconds. He had already seen her completely naked. She still felt the need to protect herself in any small way possible.

To her surprise, he starts to run his hands up and down her waist, gently, almost as if he’s trying to massage her. Leanna shudders, her nipples erecting at the chill when Bucky peels her hands from her chest. He dips his head suddenly and envelopes one of her nipples between his lips. She feels him exhale on her breast, opening his mouth to taste more of it, creating moisture. Leanna’s back arches. He seems to be more curious about exploring her body now, unlike before. His lips suck all over her abdomen and Leanna finds herself clutching the sheets beneath her now. Though she doesn’t really want there to be, there’s pleasure in these sensations. He touches her a lot more gently this time, moaning.

When his curious mouth moves south of her navel, Leanna gasps, clutching her legs. The soldier parts her knees forcefully, exposing her to his apparent curiosity. His face between her thighs makes her feel a wave of severe embarrassment. When she attempts to sit up, she finds herself restrained by the chill of his metal arm across her abdomen, the hand pinned between between her ribs. His mouth is hot on her opening and his tongue pushing through roughly causes Leanna to gasp. He laps at her deliberately and she begins to moan, shivering. She clutches his metallic wrist, her legs dropping obediently now instead of trying to clutch on either side of the soldier’s head. He licks fervently inside her, curving his tongue upwards and drawing it in a come-hither motion. Leanna’s legs tremble. He doesn’t seem shy about assaulting her this way. Leanna bucks her hips up towards the soldier’s face now, desperately. He keeps licking her fervently, his spit slickening her up in addition to the fluids he’s causing her to produce. Soon she is practically begging for him to fuck her. She gazes down her body to find that he’s struggling to free himself from his boxers with his flesh hand. He hastily strokes up and down his shaft, all the while making eye contact before sucking hard at her clit.

Leanna’s entire body trembles as an orgasm takes her. But before she can enjoy riding the whole sensation out, Bucky pushes his hard cock inside her somewhat roughly. She winces. Despite him having warmed her up thoroughly this time, it’s still tender. He thrusts hastily, moaning. Leanna groans woefully, closing her eyes tightly and throwing her head back. He slows down, seeming to notice her discomfort. She feels soreness more than pleasure. He’s girthy. She starts to cry afresh and he slows down more, shushing her. His flesh hand finds her cheek where he gently wipes a tear away. If this is meant to happen daily, she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to get used to it.

“Shhh,” he says, pausing completely. For a moment, his weight on her isn’t so painful. The look he’s giving her is one of lust mixed with some sort of desperation. Leanna takes a few deep breaths, the soldier continuing to wipe her tears away. He starts to thrust again and she throws her head back again, groaning. His lips make contact with her chin and she continues to cry silently. Despite him being gentler, he had fucked her up hours earlier and she couldn’t enjoy it, if that’s what she was supposed to be doing. When his pace quickens, Leanna begins to fight, pushing on his pecks. She doesn’t want him to finish inside her again. The first time had burned somewhat. There was nothing normal about him. She wondered if maybe the super soldier’s super sperm was meant to inflict pain. He doesn’t bother to pin her wrists down again. He’s strong enough that he can keep fucking her without her small hands preventing him much at all. And he finally stills, grunting with finality, losing balance atop her somewhat.

Leanna sighs at the heat of his cum filling her, and wonders why there’s so much of it. This time she doesn’t manage to crawl away, catching his entire load. When he pulls out, it immediately begins to puddle beneath her. He collapses on his side, panting, like a large coal. Leanna turns to her side away from him immediately. She can tell without looking that he has turned his head to look at her. It’s quiet except for him catching his breath. A few minutes pass of this dreadful silence. Leanna finally turns around. She finds that he’s staring into space, his eyes dripping. She couldn’t believe he was crying. She isn’t sure whether these tears are even real. So far as she knows, they have him hopped up on some sort of drug for which withdrawal is lacrimation. He turns his head to look at her and Leanna sits up to get out of the bed. She doesn’t take more than two steps before dropping. Her body is so sore that she can’t walk.

She stays on her hands and knees on the floor, not wanting to see him, nor be touched again. She just wanted to get to the shower. To her surprise, the soldier makes his way out of the bed. She listens to the sound of him pulling on an article of clothing before he moves again. In seconds, his pale bare feet are in front of her. By now she can feel the wet between her thighs has soaked the floor. She wonders if perhaps he’ll shoot her now and put her out of her misery. To Leanna’s surprise, he pulls a sheet off the floor where it had fallen with her and starts to wrap it around her. She scratches as hard as she can at his bare chest, ripping him. He doesn’t appear bothered by her attempts to hurt him this time. He picks her up off the floor and starts somewhere. She doesn’t bother to fight anymore as he carries her out of the room. She thinks to ask him where the fuck he’s taking her but when she gazes up at his face, he appears to be absent. Like there’s no one home inside his head. There’s no expression on his face. He looks like a robot now, emotionless, and he damn near moves like one.

He stops in a white walled room where there’s an examination table, a sink, and a locked cabinet full of what appear to be medications. He places her on the table before reaching for the cabinet lock. He merely pulls on the lock so that it breaks. Watching him do things like this with that hand terrifies Leanna. Fear begins to well up in Leanna’s chest suddenly. She watches him curiously, clutching the sheet tighter around herself.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

He doesn’t even turn to look at her. He continues to rummage through this cabinet.

“I said, what the fuck are you doing?” she asks angrily.

At last, he turns around, popping open a bottle of pills of some sort. He removes one and starts towards her. Leanna reaches for an otoscope on the wall to try and swipe him with, but he’s too fast for her. He sighs in what sounds like exasperation, gripping her wrist more tightly than is comfortable. He doesn’t let go until she drops the small tool. That she’s still trying to fight is amazing even to herself. He hands her the pill. She examines it and throws it hard against the wall.

“What the fuck do you want?!” she asks him angrily.

He grabs the bottle from the cabinet and forces it into her hands. She reads the label to find that they’re opiates. There’s an impatient knock on the door, followed by some woman’s voice. It’s angry and she doesn’t understand what is being said, but the soldier calls back at them. Without understanding what is being said, she realizes he’s trying to get her to take one of these pills. Something must be about to happen. He untwists the bottle again and presses one of the pills into her hands before recapping it and stashing it back in the cabinet. The lock is kaput, but he still places it on the cabinet door.

Leanna refuses the pill again and the soldier sighs. He paces back and forth a minute, looking…worried? She can’t be sure. And soon there’s knocking on the door and a woman in a white coat comes barging in. She looks from the soldier to Leanna, back and forth again, and behind her are what appear to be the same men who had injected her near the limo that took her to whatever this place is now. Obediently, the soldier starts towards them, exiting the room. The doctor places the clipboard she was holding on the counter and washes her hands.

“Where am I?” Leanna finally asks.

“It’s not important.”

 _Not important_? She was going to explode.

“If you try to run again, you will be sedated. When was your last period?”

“My what?”

“Your last menstrual bleed?”

Leanna sighs, shrugging.

“I don’t know,” she says argumentatively.

“Please slide up the table.”

It becomes clear to Leanna that she’s being used. She isn’t going to just let this happen. She kicks the doctor in the chest and the woman groans in discomfort, landing hard against the cabinets. The doctor reaches for something in her pocket and before Leanna knows it, the door bursts open and someone is aiming at her with a weapon of some kind. She jumps up off the table and they fire it at her. She finds herself pulling a small dart out of her arm. She doesn’t manage to get in more than a handful of punches and kicks, even bringing one of the guards to his knees, before she starts to fade. Escape wasn’t possible. If hell existed, she was sure she was living there.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: blood, violence

When Leanna comes to, she can tell that she’s been examined. She’s sore internally, and her clothes have been stripped, her body donned in a hospital gown. She’s in the same room where she’d spent the night with the soldier. He isn’t there. When she sits up, she feels woozy, like she had when they’d sedated her the previous night, when she tried to make a run for it. Leanna reaches for a glass and the pitcher on the night stand. Shakily, she pours herself some water. Not wanting to think about what’s been done to her, she still pulls the neck of the gown to confirm that she’s naked underneath. She had wondered why the soldier brought her directly to medical after waking her up to force himself on her, and then realized that it must have been part of his mission. He had to prove that he was fucking her. They wanted physical evidence. Feeling as if she’s going to vomit, Leanna stumbles out of the bed and rushes uneasily to the bathroom.

There’s almost nothing left in her stomach to regurgitate, but she manages to relieve herself and sit on the floor against the wall, wiping the mess off her mouth with the gown. She fights the tears that start to come anyway. She wants to get the fuck out of this place. She closes her eyes, picturing Steve’s smiling face. She figures he has to be dead. That’s why she hasn’t been saved yet. And there must not be a way for Natasha to help her anymore. Nothing is safe. Nothing feels safe. The sound of footsteps approaching surprises Leanna. She hadn’t heard anyone enter the room over the sound of her own wailing. Natasha’s terrified face appears in the doorway. No doubt she’s heard this agony ringing aloud. She rushes to Leanna, who immediately stops crying.

“H—how are you here?” Leanna asks.

Natasha’s mouth moves, but no sound comes out. She grips Leanna’s shoulder’s as if to make sure she’s seeing the woman in front of her and not a ghost. Natasha reaches into her pocket and presses something into Leanna’s hands.

“Take one of these,” she says, “They’ll help. I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you sooner.”

Natasha stands and rushes back out of the room. Leanna can hear the sound of water pouring. She finally glances into her hands. They’re pills. About ten of them. Small white circles. Leanna shakily begins to lift them to her mouth, and immediately Natasha is before her again, pulling her hand away.

“Not all at once,” she says, “I don’t know what the hell that would do to you,” she explains. It’s clear to Leanna now that Natasha must know what’s happening.

“Steve,” Leanna breathes, downing one of the pills.

“We’ve got to hide the rest. Somewhere he won’t look…” Natasha is looking frantically around the room. She pulls tape from inside her pocket and Leanna watches her pour the rest of the pills into a small container disguised as a lighter. Natasha tears the tape with her teeth and reaches far under the tub. When she pulls her hand out again, she’s no longer holding the container. She tears a few more pieces of tape and sticks them carefully in roughly the same place.

“Take one of those every day at…” she checks her watch, “Noon.”

“Where is he?” Leanna asks.

“Steve? I’m still working on getting through to the team. I swear to you—not much longer—”

“No, where is that bastard?” Leanna asks, closing her eyes. All she wants to do is knee the soldier in the groin as hard as she can. Natasha sighs.

“I don’t know,” she whispers, glancing behind herself nervously, “But you have to last. Leanna. If not the next nine days,” she says, glancing at the tub. Leanna makes a mental note to retrieve the pills from there the following day, “At least long enough for us to get the hell out of here. Together,” Natasha explains, grasping Leanna’s hand. It feels strange to be touched without the intent of harm. For once in the past 24 hours, someone touching Leanna doesn’t cause her to want to go into attack mode.

“I have to leave before they know I came to you in here. I’ll blow my cover.”

Leanna pulls at Natasha’s hand, her eyes watering afresh.

“Please. Can’t you just stay here just five more minutes?”

“He’s already on his way back, Le. I can’t be seen.” Natasha kneels at Leanna’s side again,

“Just try to hang in there, okay? The less you fight, the less he will hurt you. He will follow orders, Leanna. He’s _not_ the man we knew anymore. His mind belongs to them now.”

Natasha grips Leanna’s hand tightly for a handful of seconds, looking apologetic. She rushes away, leaving Leanna to herself. The room must be unguarded, otherwise, how did Natasha…? And Leanna hears the window shutting. Natasha must have scaled the building. It occurs to Leanna that she doesn’t know what this facility actually looks like. So, she has no idea how big or how small it is. Just that she’s trapped in this room and that the Winter Soldier is coming back. Leanna practices taping and un-taping the small container under the tub. She thinks it a clever place to have hidden it. She feels around to make sure she can tell where the extra pieces of tape are.

About an hour after she showers, there’s a knock at the door and she’s offered food. She doesn’t bother to try and make a run for it again. It wasn’t more than an hour after taking one of the pills that Natasha had given her that Leanna begins to feel nauseous. She ignores the feeling by trying to pass the time. The only form of entertainment in this room is a shelf of books. Many of them are old, nothing particularly interesting, but when the sun sets, the door opens. No one had bothered to knock. Leanna glances up curiously from her spot on the couch. A few guards step inside the room. Shortly after them, the soldier breezes into the room. He’s handed a small phial of something. He drinks it, the guard watching him intently. He twists the cap closed and hands the empty item back to them. They exit the room and Leanna can hear the doors locking from the outside. The soldier stalks further into the room, in Leanna’s direction.

Leanna stops looking at him. She tries to consume herself in the words on the page she had just turned. She closes her eyes, hearing him get closer. A long moment passes where nothing happens. There’s silence. Leanna keeps her eyes closed. And then she opens them to find the soldier in front of her, kneeling there. He pulls the book from her hands. He places it slowly on the table behind him. _The less you fight, the less he will hurt you_. Natasha’s voice gets louder inside Leanna’s head. She finally stops looking at the book he had taken from her and at his face. His eye is bruised, somewhat purple, as if someone had hit him. She wonders whether he was punished for something, because if he’d been on a mission, he’d surely have killed anyone that might attempt to attack him.

She grows uncomfortable under his blue gaze. He reaches for her waist and starts to lift her off the couch. Leanna inhales sharply, and holds her breath. She closes her eyes again. She’s certain he’s about to haul her over to the bed, but instead, he takes a spot on the couch and brings her into his lap. Leanna grips the couch at her sides uncomfortably. He moans. She tries to leave her body, knowing what’s about to happen. His face is in her neck, sniffing, his hands fondling her breast and her knee. The nausea worsens and Leanna fights with all her strength to just be still. She wants nothing more than to elbow him over the head, but she knows that this will not end well. He pulls her rear hard against himself and groans, his hands touching her all over. Leanna turns her cheek away from his lips when they press against it.

His metal hand travels between her legs and dips beneath the waistband of her pants before she can stop him. He starts rubbing her. Leanna moans reluctantly. His face rests in the back of her head as he continues trying to get her wet. He seemed to be taking his time. She tries to pull away now, convinced that she will throw up. He grips her in place and she starts struggling. She doesn’t care if he hits her now. She can’t fight the urge to vomit.

“I’m going to throw up,” she says, trying to warn him. But he doesn’t release her, likely assuming it’s just a ploy to try and stall him. But Leanna leans forth as far as she can and vomits. When the soldier realizes what is happening, he sighs, easing up on Leanna. He waits until she finishes throwing up to get her into the bathroom. It had gotten on her clothes. He turns the water on and just stands there looking at her.

“Well, get the fuck out,” she says. He stares at her a bit longer with a blank expression before walking out of the bathroom and closing the door. Leanna realizes that there’s no lock on this door. But she strips and gets herself warm under the water. The nausea had passed but when she glances down at the drain, she finds that she is bleeding. Hopefully this will deter the soldier further than her almost vomiting on him. She grins to herself without teeth. She’s not in the shower for long before the door swings open, hitting the wall. Shocked, Leanna jumps slightly. The curtain tears back and the soldier makes his way into the shower. He’s completely naked and erect. He presses Leanna hard against the wall and enters her from behind. She’s slick with blood, which causes him to enter more easily. He moans loudly, unhindered by Leanna’s screaming. He’s grunting animalistically. She’d caught a glimpse of his eyes when he pulled the curtain back. He looked crazed, out of control. Whatever they were keeping him on, it was making him utterly insane. He pounds her in a needful manner, as if he’ll die if he can’t finish.

She struggles and manages to slip down the wall. The soldier collapses on top of her on the floor of the tub, forcing her onto her hands and knees and continuing to take her from behind. She’s sore still from the previous night and early this morning, but it isn’t as bad as it was the first time and she stops resisting him, knowing he’ll simply knock or choke her out and continue if she doesn’t stop fighting. His hands pin hers down on the tub floor. Blood tinting the water is noticeable, but the soldier doesn’t stop. She’s not sure whether his crazy eyes are even still open. His teeth bare into her shoulder for a moment, but not too hard, almost as if he was trying to control himself. He pauses. She hopes that he’s finished, but he forces her onto her back and collects her legs, throwing them over his shoulders. He stares at her in desperation, plunging his cock back inside her. Leanna screams, the scream turning into a moan.

She pulls at his wrists around her legs but he’s too strong to stop. He’s so deep now, causing Leanna’s mouth to hang open as she gasps through his next handful of thrusts. His moaning intensifies and she can tell that he’s close. He looks like he’s about to cry or sneeze. She can’t tell which. A few more rough thrusts and she feels the heat of his seed spraying and coating her internally. She doesn’t bother to try and wriggle away this time, thinking about the pills hidden taped under the tub. He pulls away from her, kneeling there, panting, his hair plastered to his face now. His fists are balled, trembling. Leanna sits up, backing away from him. His eyes are scanning the porcelain floor, seemingly confused by all of the blood that’s rinsing away along with the portions of his cum that didn’t make it inside of her. He wipes a bit of the blood off his pelvis, holding his hand under the water. Leanna can’t take looking at him any longer and she stands up, turning away from him, rinsing her body once more, wondering when the hell she’ll get out of this place.

He seemed to think that maybe he had been far too rough with her this time. He couldn’t understand where all the blood was coming from. She hadn’t bled like that even the first time. Leanna is hastily rinsing her body, rinsing him off of her. When she abandons him in the shower, she glances for a moment to find him still on his knees, staring at his hands like he can’t believe what he’d just done. She closes the curtain and leaves him in there alone. Her legs are wobbly now as she makes it to the bed. She’s in so much pain that she can’t manage to get herself back up. She doesn’t realize how much she’s bleeding. When she manages to lift her head, she finds that there’s a trail of ruby drops, following the same crooked path she had taken. She doesn’t remember blacking out, but the sensation of being carried is familiar. She weakly mumbles repeatedly. For a moment, she catches a glimpse of the soldier’s face. If she didn’t know any better, she’d have said he looked panicked.

The walls are all white where he is frantically speaking, lying her somewhere. The chill of a stethoscope meets Leanna’s chest and she starts struggling. She spots the soldier’s flesh arm, bloody. She glances down to find that he had wrapped her in a sheet from the bed and she’s bleeding through it. His voice is so frantic that Leanna is certain she can hear what sounds like concern. The same doctor she had tried to attack is seemingly frustrated with him. Leanna nearly falls off the table when the soldier dives to catch her and put her back. He slaps the doctor, who falls. He kicks the doctor in the head so hard that Leanna knows the blow to be fatal. Before she knows it, he’s being beaten with what appear to be metal rods, and she finds herself restrained.

She is in and out of consciousness. She’s cold. They took the soldier away. A new doctor has removed the sheet that he had wrapped her in. There’s so much blood. She had been hooked up to an IV. Whatever those pills Natasha gave her were supposed to do, they were probably just killing her now. There’s gunfire somewhere close by. Footsteps are running in or out of the room, or maybe past it. Leanna can’t tell. She can barely lift her head to look. She swears she sees the silver star on the chest of Steve’s stealth suit, hears him calling her name. She’s certain that she’s just on the brink of death and hallucinating now as she feels someone ripping the restraints off her arms and legs, picking her body off the table. Is it really Steve’s face? She starts to cry helplessly before blacking out again.


	6. Chapter 6

“I blame myself for not protecting you better.” Steve’s fingers passing comfortingly up and down Leanna’s spine aren’t as unwelcome as other touches she had endured in the past month. His dreamy light blue eyes keep scanning the bruises on her every so often. Each time they do this, his blonde brows furrow in consternation, constantly recalculating in his mind every way things could have and should have gone. Maybe if he had made her stay close by him during the last mission she’d attended. Maybe if he had deemed her not ready to be a field agent, she wouldn’t have taken on more than she could handle. She would have been safe at the Avengers facility, training. She wouldn’t have been captured. Natasha, Steve hadn’t worried about. She could always handle herself. But he didn’t think he’d ever see Leanna again, and that scared him, more than imagining what Bucky was doing, what they were doing to him. He knew that if anyone had wanted Bucky dead, they wouldn’t have flipped his switch and made him the Winter Soldier again. They would’ve just shot him on sight.

He reasoned that because he saved Bucky once, he could do it again. But this time, he’s not so sure. It doesn’t matter that he got Bucky back physically, he’s just not Bucky anymore. Despite the new science team’s best efforts, Steve worries that they won’t be able to unlock James’s mind, and he’ll simply stay the Winter Soldier forever. And that meant he couldn’t be left unsupervised, couldn’t be let free. What sort of a life was that? Leanna hadn’t spoken one word since Steve had found her strapped to an operating table at the enemy compound, naked. It’s been a little over a week, and she still hasn’t spoken. Not even to the medical team. She’d barely let anyone touch her. When Steve received that report from Dr. Cho, it concerned him. He knew that Leanna must have endured something terrible. Because even when he sat at her bedside, holding her hand, she came to and snatched it out of his grip, screaming.

The nightmares would be the worst part of her recovery. Steve knew enough about PTSD that he could already see all the signs of it. He didn’t need to hear a formal diagnosis from anyone on the medical team. Because she didn’t feel safe and got worse every time that Steve left the hospital wing, he’d had a cot set up in her room. He would find Leanna in it next to him when the sun shone through in the mornings, if he didn’t wake up from her screaming in her nightmares. It got so bad that she was breaking through sedation and they had to up her dose just so that she could sleep at least a few hours at a time.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice breaking, and a single tear rolling down his cheek. Leanna’s eyes water, though she smiles through the pain ever so slightly.

“I won’t let anything happen to you again…When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be right here,” he promises, “I’ll be right here.” He has been saying this for three days, and wonders whether Leanna even understands him. Steve considers this whole thing his own fault. If only he had planned better. To his relief, the meds begin to kick in and he watches Leanna drift off to sleep. He doesn’t dare to move from her bed, however, fearing she’ll wake up. He sighs, pulling the blanket further up her shoulder. He just cared that she felt safe at that point. After about an hour, the Captain sits up slowly, carefully, as if everything counted on it not to wake her up.

He had to be sure she would sleep before going to find out whether there were any breakthroughs with Bucky. He would come back before she knew he was ever gone. Down in the basement, the deepest part of the Avenger’s facility, the hardest to escape from, Steve scans his palm on a handful of reinforced doors. It’s busy down here, and never sleeps, agents waltzing every which way working on solving this issue, among countless others out there. The interrogation room where Bucky is still refusing to speak English stands only a few feet ahead of Steve when his phone pings. It’s one of the nurses in the hospital wing asking where he had gone. They kept checking on Leanna every half hour, and the Captain had ordered medical to update him every half hour with Leanna’s status if he wasn’t there. To his relief, she’s still sleeping.

He sighs. Natasha backhands Bucky hard. Steve pauses to stare through the one-way mirror. Bucky had barely flinched. She’s yelling at him, slamming her fists on the table, demanding answers. Steve crosses his arms, narrows his eyes. He didn’t like any of this, but he knew it was probably the only way to deal with Bucky now. Bucky laughs at Natasha’s frustration, not convinced of who he really is. It’s just not working yet.

“Captain,” an agent greets, turning up the volume for inside the small room. Bucky’s laugh makes Steve’s skin crawl. It isn’t Bucky. It is hardly human. The translations seep through the speaker.

“Where is she?” Bucky asks.

“You will never see her again,” Natasha threatens, crossing her arms and pacing, “What if I told you that you killed her?” Natasha adds. At this, Bucky blanches. He starts to glare at Natasha, fighting harder to get through his restraints, so hard that his face reddens.

“She’s dead because of you,” Natasha adds.

“Liar. She was one of your own—I know you took her. When I get out of this, I will kill you,” he promises.

“She was your mission—I know. And soldier, you failed,” Natasha explains, casually ignoring his threat. Steve cocks a brow. This is the first round of live interrogation he’s hearing. The first time it was a psychiatrist, and they were merely trying to convince Bucky that he’s not the Winter Soldier anymore. For a few seconds, Steve isn’t sure who this woman is that Bucky and Natasha are talking about. But his phone pings in his pocket again and when he glances at the screen, all it reads is: she’s awake. Steve’s heart stops and he nearly drops his phone. He places it uneasily on the table where the agent who had turned on the translator turns the volume up a bit more. Bucky was talking about Leanna.

“Shut it off,” he commands, looking them dead in the face, “The only ears I want are the bodies in that room.” He hurries to the door, hoping that his first appearance might actually jog Bucky’s memory. Natasha gasps upon seeing Steve fly through the door; no one expected to see him in here tonight. He shuts it before finding the panel on the wall which turns the outside view off. No one can see or hear inside the room now.

“I told you, _I’m going to crack him_ , Steve,” Natasha mutters, closing in on him to explain quietly, “You shouldn’t be down here. Le might wake up and—”

“I _can’t_ take this anymore. I need to know something,” Steve explains, his fist balling as he stares over at Bucky. There’s so much darkness in Bucky’s eyes that he looks like a stranger.

“I know that you can understand me,” he says, taking a step towards Bucky, who only laughs and looks away with no intent to clarify anything. He spits in Steve’s direction, and Steve doesn’t need the translator to know that he’s speaking disparagingly of him. He closes the gap between himself and Bucky and unlocks the wrist restraint on his flesh arm.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Natasha asks.

“You want us to let you go? I’ll trade you. What did you do to her, you son of a bitch?” Steve asks. Bucky looks at Steve in disbelief, flexing and extending his flesh hand which had begun to fall asleep in the restraints. He’s not fast enough, or rather, he’s about the right match for Steve who immediately blocks the punch that Bucky attempts to throw. Had his head not been restrained as well, he could have probably been more exact. Steve twists Bucky’s wrist until he groans reluctantly.

“ _Tell—me—what—you—did_ ,” the Captain demands. Bucky glares at him. Seconds pass, and from the corner of his eye, Steve can see that Natasha has her hand on her gun.

“Steve…put his hand back in that lock and step away,” Natasha warns.

“Tell me!” Steve screams, twisting Bucky’s wrist more until he yells.

“Steve!”

“ _She’s my mission_ ,” Bucky strains.

“What? What do you mean?” Steve asks desperately, hoping that if he just keeps this pain present a while longer, he can keep Bucky talking.

“When I find her, I’ll kill all of you.”

“ _What is your mission?!_ ”

Bucky purses his lips tightly, reluctantly. Thankfully, his mouth had long since been checked for cyanide pills. He’s just being disobedient now, loyal to the wrong side. Steve twists harder and Bucky screams.

“ _Perfect genes_ …To breed her!” he cedes, wanting the agony to end, “To make _more_! There will be more.” A nail finally flies free of one of the ankle restraints.

“Steve!” Natasha yells. Bucky’s right leg breaks free and he kicks Steve as hard as he can in the chest, causing the Captain to fly backwards, the wind knocked clear out of him. Immediately, Bucky starts unlocking his bionic limb and Natasha has hit the panic button. Steve recuperates the literal second that Bucky’s arm is free. He swings at Steve who ducks and charges him so hard into the wall that it cracks. This room is the only one not made of steel down here. Natasha slams the panic button on the wall, keeping her gun pointed at Steve and Bucky struggling. The two men tumble and the rage flowing through Steve’s veins invigorates him in a way that seems to make him superhuman. He slams Bucky repeatedly in the wall before taking a knee to his already aching chest as Bucky breaks free of this. Bucky’s bionic fist is punching Steve repeatedly in the face.

The words the soldier had said in the chair echo in Steve’s ears and he sees red. He finds himself strangling Bucky with intent, making his way back on top for a handful of seconds until the soldier nearly breaks Steve’s arm to get free. As he’s about to punch the Captain into unconsciousness, three darts hit him, diverting his attention. He gets up to attack the team that had shot him, already unsteady on his feet as he pulls two darts out of his back, the third out of his neck. Steve is barely able to stand, certain his sternum is broken. He watches Bucky collapse just seconds before reaching the handful of agents blocking the door.

“Steve,” Natasha breathes, rushing to his side and immediately administering an anesthetic. The Captain is just now sitting up, his face strained with pain.

“Are you _fucking_ _insane_? Why did you let him free? He could have _killed_ you—”

“He raped her,” Steve breathes, wincing. He finds it hard to breathe, and is unsure if it’s because of his injury or Bucky’s confession.

“Medic!” Natasha calls. She had helped Steve lean against the chair where Bucky had been sitting moments prior. Steve had managed to cough some blood. He watches the team drag Bucky, now sedated, out of the interrogation room. Knowing he will be restrained elsewhere, Steve fights the urge to follow and continue to strangle him.

“You’re bleeding internally,” Natasha explains, injecting Steve with another anesthetic. His pain gradually dissipates. He can’t stop glaring into space.

“Steve, she’s going to be alright. You saved her,” Natasha explains before backing away to let the small med team help him up.


	7. Chapter 7

Steve finds himself in the hospital wing, but not to visit Leanna, who he hopes is asleep again. He’d left his phone down in the basement near the interrogation room. They’re performing x-rays of his chest where Bucky had kicked and kneed him. He’s told that there’s a stress fracture, and it is already healing. He doesn’t even feel pain anymore after what Natasha had given him. He’s sitting in a different room in a bed for all of ten minutes when Natasha walks in to find him getting up.

“Steve—you’ve got to slow down,” she warns, disappointed that he’s more than likely back on his way down to the basement for Bucky, “He’s being kept under for a while, so you won’t even be able to talk to—”

“Did you know what they were going to do to her?” Steve asks, standing up straight now. He snatches his shirt off the bed and starts to pull it back on. Natasha gazes out the window where it’s snowing.

“Natasha,” he demands.

“By the time I figured it out, I was still struggling to find the time to get away long enough to contact you. There was nothing I could have done. I would have gotten both Leanna and myself killed. Would that have been preferable?” Natasha asks, frustrated. But the Captain can tell that she blames herself, too. Steve sighs, deflating a little bit.

“Steve, this is not your fault.”

“It _is_. I shouldn’t have had him out in the field. I shouldn’t have had her out there either.”

“Leanna _wanted_ to be in the field. You know that. She knows what risks we take every time, every mission…you’re gonna have to stop beating yourself up at some point. She’s stronger than you give her credit for.”

“I just can’t believe he did it.”

“He wasn’t himself. He’s still _not_ …himself. There’s nothing he could have done to stop it, and you know that the real Barnes would never do something so awful.”

“I need to see her,” Steve states, starting for the door. Natasha follows him, gripping his elbow and he pauses.

“They put her back to sleep. You might want to go get some rest. We can try Bucky again in a couple of days. They’re starting to think that the only way to get him back might be to re-work his neurological circuits.”

“How exactly?”

Natasha clears her throat, not wanting to go on. Steve turns around to look her in the eyes.

“How?”

“Pretty much to do electroconvulsive. It’s worth a shot. We want him back. Don’t you?”

Steve sighs again before continuing through the door.

“Thank you for the update,” he calls over his shoulder.

By the time Steve reaches Leanna’s room, he catches Dr. Cho with a couple of new medical interns. She gives them instructions about an assignment and he waits until they leave her to approach.

“Captain Rogers,” she beams, “you should be resting. I heard about what happened in the basement just now. Why aren’t you resting? It’s pretty late,” she explains, flipping through some papers on a clipboard. Damn, did word get around here fast. Steve follows her just past Leanna’s room.

“Actually,” he says, placing a hand on her shoulder. She pauses and turns to face him, “I was wondering whether you ever did a rape kit?” he asks, leaning to her height somewhat and lowering his voice.

“Leanna was bleeding pretty badly when I found her last week. I wasn’t sure what—”

“I don’t mean to be difficult, Captain, but these aren’t really details that I should be discussing with you,” Dr. Cho interrupts, keeping her voice just as quiet, “we did do one and we took all of the precautionary measures to prevent further progress of the things they were doing to her and to Sergeant Barnes. We know that their op was to try to create more super soldiers. I don’t know whether you got the rundown from intelligence, but since obtaining agent Leanna and Sergeant Barnes again, we have all been working on better encrypting personnel medical files. There was a breach in security and that’s how someone on the outside was able to obtain any information that would have led them to Barnes or Leanna in the first place.”

Dr. Cho can detect Steve’s uneasiness. She starts towards Leanna’s room where the curtain has been drawn to see that she’s still sleeping.

“What I _can_ tell you is that Leanna’s going to make a full recovery. I’m transferring her to psych tomorrow. She’s healed remarkably. It’s no wonder that the new Hydra wanted to experiment on her. She’s not a superhuman, but her functioning is quite comparable to, well…you,” Dr. Cho finishes, gazing up at Steve momentarily.

“Try not to worry. You can sit with her if you like, as you’ve been for the past few days. When you’re here, we don’t need to sedate her as often. It helps. You know, there are rooming-in models of care which actually improve the recovery time of infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome. It reduces the need for pharmacological intervention, so you’ve had the right idea being by her side.”

“My guilt is what keeps me here every night.”

“No one foresaw this, Captain. Guilt won’t help you now. As far as the psychological aspects of her recovery go, you’re doing the most that you possibly can.” Dr. Cho rests a hand on Steve’s arm momentarily before breezing away to do whatever she has to do, tend to other wounded agents, run tests. Steve doesn’t sleep. He sits in a chair by Leanna’s bed, watching it snow, watching her sleep. Her bruises are even more faded than they were just a few hours ago. He’s looking out at the rising sun, thinking about what he’ll say to Bucky the next time they’re in the interrogation room.

“I want them dead.”

Steve’s head snaps in Leanna’s direction when he finds her awake. He hasn’t heard her speak all this time. He knows who she’s talking about. She’s staring at the wall, playing with the IV in her finger. She hadn’t been eating or drinking, so she had to be kept on fluids. Her voice was stronger than she looks and Steve stands and grips her hand which is about to remove the IV.

“We’ve been working on that,” he explains, “I _promise_ you.”

Leanna gazes up at him.

“Is James…?”

“He’s under sedation. But we have him. He can’t hurt you anymore,” Steve promises. Leanna’s hands tremble.

“That wasn’t James,” she breathes.

“I know.”

Leanna gazes out the window where everything is white and covered.

“It wasn’t him…it was a monster,” she whispers.

“He’s not going to hurt you again, Leanna—I’ll make sure of it.”

She pulls her hand out of Steve’s grasp and jumps out of the bed so quickly that it takes Steve by surprise. She’s halfway out the door before he remembers his legs and starts after her. The IV is trailing her as she makes it out into the hall. Steve trips over it as Leanna pushes it behind herself to stall him. She had ripped the needle out now. She’s going for the elevators. Steve winces where he’d fallen, his chest not quite completely healed just yet. But he manages to get up and grab Leanna before the elevator opens. She starts crying and slamming her fists against him. What did she think she was going to do? The same thing that Steve tried to do when he went to the basement hours prior. It isn’t long before Dr. Cho and her team are surrounding them, someone preparing a syringe of what’s probably Haldol.

“No—she’s fine,” Steve states, calling them off, “She’s going to be fine. No more drugs.”

She still couldn’t sleep very well, but she’d begged to be let out of the hospital wing and into the comfort of her own room again. Steve would lie beside her at night or she wouldn’t sleep. Before all of this went down, they had grown very close, and he’d even kissed her once, but now he simply couldn’t be close to Leanna and touch her like that. For the most part, she remained uneasy with being touched and Steve was careful not to do it too much. She would wake him up groaning in her sleep and sweating. Steve would wake her up, clutching her shoulders, and sometimes when she blinked, she would see Bucky’s face as if her bad dreams were trying to come to life again, before she would finally recognize his voice telling her, “Le, it’s me. It’s just me.”

“I want to face him. These nightmares aren’t going to stop until I do.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Le,” Steve states, pouring Leanna a cup of coffee.

“He’s still not himself. Why traumatize yourself like that?”

“It’s no more trauma than these nightmares,” she explains, looking him in the eyes.

“Well he’s not awake. I was told they’re leaving him like that until tomorrow.”

Leanna sighs, “I _can’t_ stand you looking at me like that anymore,” Leanna explains angrily.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re sorry,” Leanna explains.

“You know that I am. I should have kept you safe—”

“Stop saying that.” Leanna leaves her mug on the table and starts towards the wall which is a window. Steve is currently missing a meeting with the rest of the team. He won’t leave Leanna’s side. The only time she’d had real space from him is when she’d go into the bathroom. He just didn’t want to go anywhere without knowing exactly what was happening to her. She couldn’t blame him, but his guilt is beginning to aggravate her. Instead of being so sorry, she’d rather Steve let her beat the shit out of the Winter Soldier. But she knows that she more than likely won’t be given this opportunity because it’s really Bucky in there. Even though she’d heard what Steve had done a few nights prior in interrogation, she doesn’t know that he will allow her to take her own shots at Bucky.

A pair of brawny arms encircling her waist cause Leanna to gasp. Again, she’s in that room where Bucky is behind her, being so aggressive, so inhumane. Steve releases her abruptly. Perhaps he’d forgotten for a moment just how traumatized she still is. She had stopped showing it so overtly. The Captain starts apologizing profusely. How could he have been so mindless as to come up _behind_ her like that without warning? He should have known better. Leanna whips around to be sure it’s still Steve. In the reflection of the glass, she swore that it was Bucky.

“Stop being sorry and let me _make_ him sorry,” she growls.

“Leanna, please. That won’t help you heal. I know—I’ve tried,” Steve explains. She knows he’d gotten revenge before in various other situations, and he definitely knew better. She wipes her eyes furiously.

“I’m just as angry as you are, Leanna. Look at us,” Steve explains.

“You aren’t sleeping, you’re barely eating. I can’t even touch you anymore.”

At this Leanna’s heart pangs. It’s her turn to feel guilty. She balls her fists, closing her eyes tightly. When she looks at Steve again, he’s holding back tears.

“You should be in your meeting. They need you,” she explains, Leanna stands on her toes to place a quick kiss on Steve’s cheek.

“Where are you going?” he asks, starting after her.

“To my psych appointment. I’m already late,” Leanna explains. Steve glances at the clock. She isn’t lying, but when he starts to follow her again, she pauses.

“You don’t have to go with me everywhere anymore,” she explains, “I can do this.”

But the way he tilts his head to the side as she presses the elevator button to go up, she realizes that he must have wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to try to go to the basement. Even if she did, there were agents to get through, and while she was asleep the previous night, Steve had made sure to get the message to IT to cancel her access for that part of the building. He watches her get into the elevator, watches her press the buttons which he can’t see as the doors begin to close.

“I’m going to be fine, Steve,” Leanna promises.

Even if the elevator went down, she wouldn’t have been able to get past the first door.


	8. Chapter 8

Leanna pulls both her feet up on the couch this time. She stares out the window where all the snow has settled.

“What did Captain Rogers say when you told him about the healing process we discussed?”

The psychiatrist’s voice is familiar and comforting. This is Leanna’s fourth session.

“I love Steve…He’s been here for me this _whole_ time…I tried telling him that I feel like I have to—have to face Buck… _the winter soldier_. I explained to him that if I don’t, I’m just going to keep having the nightmares. It’s just like I explained to _you_ the other session—about when I was little and afraid of swimming pools. I didn’t stop having nightmares that I was drowning until I learned to swim _in_ them.”

“Did you make it clear to Captain Rogers that facing him was your idea?”

“I thought I did…but he’s not on board with it. He said, ‘Why traumatize yourself like that?’…Steve doesn’t understand. I think that he’s just…being protective,” Leanna explains, nodding, “Which I appreciate, but I am starting to feel like it’s exactly what I need to do. That if I don’t, I just won’t be able to get over it. And I won’t be able to move on.”

“Do you think that it would help if he came here with you for a session and you explained it to him again? Perhaps you weren’t in the right environment when you brought it up. He might see more clearly if he’s in a therapy session with you.”

Leanna shrugs, laughing without humor.

“I don’t know. I don’t know that he will change his mind…He’s stubborn.”

“You never know until you try.”

The doctor nods understandingly. When Leanna leaves her therapy session, the only thing on her mind is going to the basement to find Bucky. If she could even just punch him _once_ , she’s sure all her pain will go away. Before she can press the button on the elevator, an agent is walking off of it to inform her that Steve is off on an impromptu mission. Leanna tries to shake the agent after all the small talk in the elevator, but the woman named Claire appears to be heading to the recreation level as well. Claire continues to engage Leanna, who, without saying so, guesses that Claire must be following Steve’s specific orders. The agent invites Leanna to check out the newest addition of fitness machinery to the training floor. Every intention that Leanna has of going down to the basement is impeded by the agent’s presence, who then treats her to a debriefing session for new recruits, something that Leanna had endured countless times before she was recognized to have the skills necessary to be drafted as an addition to the original team.

The agent distracts Leanna endlessly over lunch by asking about her first mission directly under Steve. Leanna finds herself genuinely lost in all the details of it, recalling it rather fondly. She’d even had the chance to shoot one of Barton’s arrows into a ship that was trying to make a run for it. She recalls the way it shut off all the power instantly. Surprised that someone had gotten her talking for this long, Leanna doesn’t notice the hours going by. Claire is a special agent in the science division, and she manages to distract Leanna with this by bringing her to a lab to show her all of the research going on regarding new devices for missions that are currently in development. This division has always been one of Leanna’s interests, and she’s convinced now that Steve had sent Claire to do all of this while he’s away. Leanna pretends not to notice Claire texting someone every so often with updates that she’s fine, using the bathroom, or on the treadmill.

It isn’t until she’s walking out of the women’s locker room that Claire explains she had better go to a meeting on the fifth floor that Leanna is free of her. Leanna walks out of the locker room in time to find Natasha breezing by in her catsuit, Wanda beside her, the two of them casually discussing details of whatever mission they’re coming from.

“Hi Le,” Wanda calls over her shoulder in passing, “We should catch up soon.”

“Yeah.” Leanna waves. And Steve follows shortly after, texting something and shoving his phone in the pocket of his stealth suit as soon as he lays eyes on Leanna. She’s certain about Claire, but she’s not going to bother asking Steve about it. She’s going to let him think that she isn’t still thinking about going to the basement. He looks tired when he smiles at her.

“I’m sorry I disappeared while you were in therapy,” he explains, his eyes scanning her as if to make sure there’s no new bruises. His hair is sweaty in some places, plastered to his forehead.

“What about dinner tonight? Just us, huh?” he asks, walking her into a corner where no one can hear as easily. Leanna gazes the direction in which Natasha and Wanda had disappeared. Sam is walking after them, asking about one of his guns that he had let somebody borrow.

“Hey,” Steve says, tilting Leanna’s chin up to look at him, “Is something wrong?”

“I would have liked to come,” she explains. Steve furrows his brows.

“And miss your session? I wasn’t going to interrupt it for that. It was just a minor mission.”

It’s clear to her that he doesn’t want her thinking about going out there again. She doesn’t have to ask him to know he doesn’t want her to. He’s still scared of what could happen.

“What do you think about dinner, Le? I could take you into the city. You’ve been cooped up here for a few weeks now.”

Leanna nods. Steve kisses her forehead.

“I’ll shower and change. I’ll come knock on your door,” he explains. She grins and nods. He doesn’t start walking away until she starts for the residence level. He waits with her by the elevator until she’s inside it. His over-caution is beginning to be overkill.

Steve drives like a grandpa and Leanna starts to wonder whether they’ll make it anywhere as her stomach growls, breaking the silence.

“I’m sorry I left without saying anything,” he explains again.

“Oh, no. It’s okay. You’re right, I don’t want to miss any of my sessions.”

“Are you feeling like they’re helping you?” Steve asks. He pauses at a red light to give her his attention. Leanna nods. She takes a deep breath and Steve looks at her curiously.

“When are they going to wake him up? I thought it was supposed to be soon.”

Steve visibly deflates a bit, and he keeps his eyes on the road.

“Honey, you don’t need to worry about that. They’re working on it. I don’t want you to worry about it.”

“I’m not worried, Steve…I just need to face him. I need him to know what he did and that he can’t hurt me anymore,” Leanna explains. She’d been working up the courage to say this the entire ride. Steve grips the wheel a little bit tighter.

“I don’t…Le, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to see him. At least not until we can get his mind right again.” Steve is shaking his head. He’s hoping that she never heard through the grapevine about the attack the other night when Steve had tried to intimidate the winter soldier. He wonders whether that’s how this facing him idea even got into her head.

“Well…what if I told you that I discussed it with the psychiatrist, and that she supports me wanting to do it?”

Steve glances at Leanna with disbelief.

“I hear you, honey. But I _don’t_ support that. I’m not going to sugar coat it. I just don’t believe that that’s going to help you. You’re very vulnerable right now, Le—”

“Stop _doing_ that, Steve.”

“What?”

“You act like I’m helpless or something,” Leanna explains. Steve finally parks and stops the car.

“That’s not what I meant—”

“It’s _exactly_ what you meant. Why me, though? You let Natasha go on that mission today. You let Wanda—”

“Wanda is enhanced and Nat has years of experience on you,” Steve explains, turning to face Leanna.

“And _Claire_? God, Steve, don’t treat me like a baby.”

He gazes out the window.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t lie to me, Steve.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“There will be other missions, missions that—when you’re ready to be out in the field again—you can handle. But right now,” he turns to face her again, “You can’t.”

Leanna scoffs.

“You _can’t_ ,” Steve explains. Leanna steps out of the car, slamming the door. Steve is immediately on her heels. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” he says, for the hundredth time in weeks.

“Please, Le.” He makes his way in front of her, causing her to come to a complete stop. When he finds that she’s crying, he’s even more apologetic.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he promises, “Please…let’s not ruin a good night. I can feel that you’ve been wanting out of that facility for days. I’m just trying to help,” he promises. His hands are warm when they clasp hers.

“Leanna, I love you. I’m going to do whatever I have to do to make sure that nothing… _nothing_ as terrible as what happened ever happens to you again. That’s all I’m guilty of,” he explains. She gazes up at him for a handful of seconds, and the kiss that ensues is like a bolt of lightning. Steve cutting it short is somewhat frustrating, but Leanna knows he just doesn’t want anything to feel forced. She clutches his arm the rest of the way to a sushi bar where they eat in next to silence, talking with their eyes, because truthfully, the only thing that Leanna wants to discuss is her desire to go on another mission or down to the basement. She knows that Steve isn’t going to take it well after their argument in the car, so instead he distracts her by talking about all of the places he would take her someday, just the two of them. No missions, no work, just to be alone together.

Leanna had drank just a bit too much wine at the restaurant, which prompted her to fall asleep on the drive back. Steve couldn’t get drunk, so the shots he was doing seemed pointless. Though he appeared to enjoy the way that she came to life and started laughing more. That’s what he wanted, for her to be able to enjoy herself. She woke up to Steve carrying her in from the cold and he’d allowed her to walk the rest of the way to her room. She went to brush her teeth while Steve tended to some sort of debriefing he said he’d had to do. He left his phone in her room and she couldn’t help peeking at it while he wasn’t there. She saw that there was a text from agent Claire, but when she tried to view it, she found that the device had to be unlocked in order to see it all. So, she fiddled with the pass code. First, she put in Steve’s birthday. The phone remained locked. She sighs to herself, thinking how could she think the Captain was that dull? He might have been old, but he wasn’t _that_ stupid. She even punched in Bucky’s birthday and it didn’t unlock. She gave up and sighed, putting it down just in time, as not more than five seconds later did the Captain return.

“Sorry. I didn’t knock,” Steve explains. Leanna shrugs. His sigh of wintergreen mouthwash greets her and she can see that he’d changed into a pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt that fits him like a glove. Leanna closes the gap between them with a needy kiss. Steve indulges, stepping with her towards the bed as Leanna stepped backwards. She pulls a leg around his middle, causing him to start to lie atop her. He stops kissing her to examine her face.

“Aren’t you tired?” Steve asks. It had been a _long_ day. Once she woke up from the nightmare she had, she couldn’t get back to sleep, and Steve had stayed up with her, right by her side, trying to be comforting. It cost him his sleep, but Leanna knew he wasn’t going to fall asleep while she was right next to him in so much distress. He couldn’t. He cared too much.

“Yeah, but…” Leanna whispers, running her hands under Steve’s shirt. His chest is heated, the abs hard like a rock under her hands. She kisses him aggressively. He grins, breaking it.

“You barely got any sleep last night,” he says, “We should sleep.” Leanna sighs as Steve gently removes her hands from under his shirt. He gently rests her lengthwise in her bed before walking over to the dresser to open the pill bottle that was sitting there. Dr. Cho had prescribed her something to help her sleep. She’d forgotten to take it the previous night.

“I just want you to be well rested,” Steve explains, grabbing her water bottle and handing her a single pill.

“I don’t want to sleep yet,” Leanna explains, shaking her head, “I want you to take my mind off of everything,” she says, grabbing his arm. He sighs, placing the pill on the night stand and maneuvering under the covers next to her.

“I don’t know,” he says, “I think we should sleep. There will be plenty of time for that.”

It becomes clear to Leanna that Steve isn’t going to fuck her tonight. Her frustration is tangible and Steve looks a little bit sorry. He _always_ looks sorry these days.

"I love you," Steve beams. Leanna smiles shyly.

"It's frustrating to hear you say that when you won't _show_ me."

Steve pulls an arm around her atop the covers.

"It's just hard for me to think about touching you more than this when you nearly decked me earlier for wrapping my arms around you."

"But Steve…right now I _want_ you to touch me." Leanna runs her hand up and down his sculpted arm. It’s hard to the touch, like there’s a lot of tension there. He has been on such high alert around her, always waiting for something to go wrong so that he might spring into action and protect.

"I don't think you're ready for that. Not yet. Aren't we doing fine just being close, sweety?"

"You don't want to touch me at all. You're only here out of guilt." She turns around. Steve's hand firm on her hip under the covers catches her by surprise. 

"That's not true," he says with audible disappointment, his voice right behind her now. He had moved closer.

"When I found you, you were bleeding _so_ badly, bruises everywhere, Leanna, in the most intimate places…You screamed when I picked you up off that table. That's how bad the pain was...I can't stop thinking about what you went through. Is it so wrong that I don't want the first time we make love to be triggering for you?"

Her heart races. A tear rolls down her cheek. She wipes it away quickly.

"I don't think you're ready emotionally. I promise, that's all it is. _Of course_ I want to make love to you…I think about it every night. Every time we're close at all...Can you be patient and just allow yourself to heal first?" Leanna sighs. She turns around to find Steve looking hopeful. She nods and he looks sorry again. She's tired of seeing this look on his face. He kisses her on the lips very carefully. He turns around after a moment, reaching for the pill again. He sits up to give it to Leanna and she takes it, chasing it down with a gulp of water. Steve kisses her before lying down again. It’s somewhat awkward facing him with him looking at her. She wonders if he’s waiting for her to fall asleep, like he had to be sure she would get some.

Gradually, Steve’s long, wheat gold lashes flutter shut, closing his intent blue gaze off from the world. Leanna listens to his breathing normalize, beginning to feel drowsy herself. She tries to distract herself from Steve’s brawny chest rising by thinking about the places he said he would take her for her birthday. Somewhere in Italy, where he said he had briefly visited during World War II. And Leanna sits up, Steve’s phone buzzing on the dresser. She quietly sneaks out of bed, untangling herself from under his arm. She tiptoes towards the dresser to try and silence the phone, when an idea pops into her head. She enters her birthday, and Steve’s phone unlocks. Leanna gazes over at the bed where Steve is still sleeping, wondering how long this has been his passcode.

All she really wants to see is what he said to agent Claire. And she finds proof of her suspicions. It wasn’t long after she went to her therapy session that Steve had texted Claire to stop by that particular floor at 1:30 (exactly when Leanna’s session ended). He informed the agent just to keep Leanna occupied until he came back. She places Steve’s phone down as quietly as possible before walking back to the bed where he’s dead asleep. She lies there far away from him, however, thinking about the basement and how she can best get down there without Steve knowing about it. She wasn’t going to close her eyes until the medicine forced her to. She’s sick of the nightmares.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve awakens at just past 9AM. He looks around for a moment, amazed by the silence. Leanna is further away from him than he remembers her being before he drifted off. He can see that she’s a little bit sweaty, but her expression isn’t as pained as it had been for the past couple of weeks. It’s easier, and what amazes him more is the fact that she’s still asleep. This is the first night she’s gotten through since he brought her back that she didn’t wake up terrified or screaming from a nightmare. He grins to himself without teeth, carefully pulling the blankets back to relieve the built up heat Leanna had created in her sleep. He’s quiet as he slips out of the bed. He’s hoping she will sleep a few hours longer, long enough for him to surprise her with breakfast in bed. He figures that the meds had made her fall asleep shortly after him, so some time around 1:30 in the morning. He sighs, reaching for his phone on the dresser. He finds it at 4% and shakes his head, quietly borrowing Leanna’s charger and silencing it on her night stand.

He quietly exits her room to go start on breakfast. Little does Steve know, Leanna isn’t sleeping peacefully. In her dreams, she’s in that room again, and it’s dark, except for the bed, where she cowers, catching glimpses of a shiny metal arm in the corner, and the next time on the opposite side of the room. She feels it cold around her ankle. Despite the psychological peril, she sleeps a little bit longer. It’s almost 10AM when she wakes up. Steve isn’t by her side. She looks around frantically for several seconds, reminding herself that they were just bad dreams. Bucky is locked away in the basement where he can’t touch her. Leanna reaches for Steve’s phone with a shaky hand, finding it almost completely charged. She unlocks it again, still surprised by the passcode. She pulls the top of the screen down to read as much of agent Claire’s text as she can without marking it read. The agent is asking Steve whether he needs her to spend time with Leanna today. The message was sent some time shortly after 8AM. He must not have had a chance to read it yet. Her phone is sitting completely charged nearby.

She pulls the blankets off the bed and throws them in the corner to be washed, wishing she would stop sweating so much. She should have turned on the overhead fan. Normally Steve did that, but he’d fallen asleep without remembering to do so. Leanna goes to shower, assuming that Steve is already making coffee for the two of them. By the time Leanna makes it back to her room, Steve is in there, a tray of fresh eggs, toast, and fruit salad on her dresser, fixing a new fitted sheet to her bed. Leanna smiles.

“You didn’t have to do that, Steve,” she explains.

“Yes, I did. Just making things easier for you,” he adds, “I’ll bring those to the wash on my way to the gym in a bit,” he explains, eying the blankets she had thrown in the corner.

“Steve, you’re so sweet,” she says, walking over to the tray and picking out a perfectly sweet piece of cantaloupe from the fruit salad he took the time to make.

“I don’t like the way that Sam cuts the fruit, so I make the salads for breakfast,” Steve explains. Leanna laughs. He reaches for his cup of coffee on a coaster next to hers.

“How did you sleep?” he asks. Leanna’s smile fades, but luckily, she’s not facing Steve when it happens. She closes her eyes a moment, reliving the nightmare.

“Not as badly as I have been…still bad dreams,” she sighs.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. I just wanted you to sleep. I couldn’t believe you were still asleep when I woke up,” Steve explains.

“Me either,” she explains genuinely. She doesn’t even turn around before unwrapping the bathrobe from her body and dropping it on her small desk, knowing that Steve is getting an eyeful of her. She doesn’t bother to turn around as she rummages her drawers for underwear and a bra. She steps into a pair of black cotton bikini cuts. She draws deodorant across each armpit before turning around to find Steve absolutely mesmerized. He looks away from her abruptly, his neck and cheeks flushing brightly for a moment. He seemed to be restraining himself physically. He got busy finishing the rest of his coffee, his eyes trailing back to Leanna once she manages to secure her bra. She walks to her closet to find an outfit for the day. She wanted to tell him that he could look at her as much as he wanted but she just let it go and picked out her favorite pair of black pants, and a dark blood red blouse.

Most mornings, she would take her clothes to the women’s room and be dressed before returning to her room, but after last night, she’d wanted to tantalize Steve just a little bit. She hopes that the little show frustrates him as much as he had frustrated her the previous night.

“Oh,” Steve says with what sounds like some surprise. She can tell that he’s reading his texts.

“What’s on the docket for today?” Leanna asks, sitting in front of her mirror and brushing her hair.

“Uh…” Steve starts distractedly, “Everyone’s hitting the gym for a group workout, if you’d like to join. You’re more than welcome. I kinda promised Sam I’d box with him, but I know that you just showered and so if you’re not interested, we can just—”

“No, you can go, Steve. I have therapy in about 45 minutes, anyway.”

“Are you sure?”2

“You’ve been spending all day with me for weeks. I’m okay.”

Steve looks at Leanna with some concern.

“I promise. You have to keep, you know, being the Captain. I’m not trying to hold you back.”

“Hold me back? Never, Le.”

“Steve, really—it’s okay. I’m going to see Dr. Branson soon and I wanted to get some laundry, done,” she explains, “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. I’ll keep my phone on me,” Steve explains, standing up and pocketing it, “And you can call me if you need me. I’ll let you know if there’s another impromptu mission. For now, it looks like Natasha and I have to fly to DC for a little bit to meet with the secretary of defense. It should only be a few hours and we should be back sometime around midnight. Sooner, I hope. I don’t want you to wait up for me. Last night was really successful. You need to keep sleeping,” Steve explains, nearing her. She glances at him in the reflection of the mirror. He places a long kiss on her cheek.

“I love you.”

All she can think about is that today they’re supposed to wake up the winter soldier. Little does Leanna know, it’s on Steve’s mind too.

“I love you,” she says, turning around to look at him. He takes a deep breath, looking at her intensely.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“I just don’t want you to be alone.”

She clutches Steve’s hand.

“I wasn’t with you for hours yesterday and I was fine,” she promises.

“We’re going to wake him up today, and I thought about what you were saying last night.”

Leanna places her brush on the desk and stands.

“I’m not comfortable with the idea of you confronting him, Leanna. I’ve got to be honest with you.”

“Steve.”

“I’m still thinking about it. If I change my mind, and you're there while he’s like this…you can’t go in without me. Okay?”

Steve squeezes her hand. She hadn’t realized that he was still holding it. She nods.

“Now, I want you to promise me,” he says almost desperately.

“I—I promise.”

He gazes at her a while longer before kissing her forehead and walking towards the door. Her heart had begun to race. Steve didn’t tell her anything further, what time they planned on waking Bucky up, which interrogation room he’d be in. He had intentionally left her in the dark with the details, and something tells her that he doesn’t plan on letting her know when he’s going down to the basement either.

Before making her way to see Dr. Branson on a much higher floor, Leanna tries it anyway.

“Sorry, Stevie,” she whispers to herself in the elevator. Steve had meant it literally: she couldn’t go in without him. Leanna is met with another flashing red light and a beeping noise when she attempts to press the button that used to let her go down to the basement. She had scanned her badge and everything. It was only agents given explicit permission who could even access that part of the building. This was due to the important fact that sometimes prisoners were kept down there, as well as the motherboard for all of the intel that they had. That access was built into her building key card. There’s clearly an issue, because she can’t get down there now. She wonders for a fleeting moment whether this had been Steve’s doing. All he would have had to do was call HR and explain that he didn’t want any particular worker to have access to any particular part of the building that required card access and they wouldn’t have it. He had complete authority to do these things.

The stairs weren’t an option either, because she already knew that there were simply no doors in the stairwell that had basement access. The only ways in and out of the basement were the elevator and one emergency door that could only be accessed from a heavily monitored point outside of the facility. She wasn’t going to be able to just waltz in undetected. Leanna sighs in agitation, slamming her fist on the wall momentarily, remembering that there’s a security camera in the elevator. So, she straightens her posture and presses the button that will lead her to Dr. Branson’s floor.

After her therapy session, it’s like clockwork that Claire just _happens to be_ in the elevator going down from a floor that was above Dr. Branson’s. Immediately, she begins chatting Leanna up about the new gizmos they’re working on in the science division. As the elevator ticks down, Leanna is suddenly very fascinated with Claire’s key card. She is talking about some sort of files she has to pick up from the basement.

“Uhm, isn’t this your floor?” she asks, holding the door open as it begins to close. Leanna had forgotten which floor she was going to get off on after Claire explained that she was heading for the basement.

“Oh—yeah,” Leanna nods, stepping out. She holds the door open again when it starts to close.

“Actually, Claire, do you want to exchange numbers? If you have a chance today, I’d really like to come back to that lab and demo some more of the new tech, if that’s possible,” she explains, eying Claire’s badge, an idea percolating inside her head.

“Oh yeah? That would be cool. I think there’s a couple of things you still haven’t seen. What time were you thinking?” Claire accepts Leanna’s phone and types in her number.

“Uh…I’ll text you. How about maybe after 3?”

“I can work that in. I’ll be going home at 5, though, so I can’t promise you can stay there after I leave—unless of course there’s someone else around.”

“No, yeah, that’s fine! We’ll just play it by ear,” Leanna smiles. She texts Claire an emoji.

“Got yours,” Claire beams, and she scans her key card for the basement button, the mechanism beeping gleefully to notify that her access has been granted. Leanna smiles as the doors close and Claire disappears.


	10. Chapter 10

It isn’t that difficult to get Claire to stare into a microscope long enough that Leanna, with her phone on silent, can snap a handful of photos of Claire’s badge where it hangs from a clip in her pocket. Checking that the hastily shot images are clear enough to display the barcode, Leanna pockets her phone before Claire backs away from the microscope.

“Literally, the light was just off,” she laughs, Leanna following suit.

“I haven’t used a microscope since microbiology in undergrad. I feel so stupid,” Leanna jokes.

She gets Claire to show her the machine which can craft biologically accurate masks, complete with voice mimicking, the very same type that Natasha had used when she had posed as Councilwoman Hawley. Leanna had even gotten Claire to demonstrate it by printing one off. The pair are laughing so much as Leanna mimics the lab technician. Claire is so beside herself with laughter that she doesn’t notice it when Leanna pockets the device as she asks about a completely different gadget, which Claire seems to be extremely excited about developing. By 4:45, there are still a few agents in the lab, and Claire starts to get ready to leave hastily, informing Leanna that she could stick around as long as there were staff present.

She waves and waits a while, checking her phone when it vibrates to find that Steve is landing in DC with Natasha, Dr. Banner, and Sam. He asks her what she’s doing and she tells him where she is. Her heart races. If they’ve woken the soldier up, now is her chance to go down there. She waits another 15 minutes to be sure that Claire has left the building before making her way to the bathroom and into a stall. No one seems to be around at this time of day, to Leanna’s relief. She locks the stall and activates the bio-mask again. When she emerges, she’s Claire to a T, washing her hands casually at the sink. Hoping that she won’t run into anyone that knows Claire, Leanna heads for the elevators again. Her heart doesn’t stop racing. She knows that what she’s doing is wrong.

She just wants to tell him to his face that he couldn’t break her, that he didn’t win. He didn’t destroy her. Having second thoughts as she steps into the empty elevator, Leanna hesitates. If Steve finds out that she lied, she doesn’t know how that will go. She doesn’t want to upset him, but at the same time, this is something she’d needed to do. She’d told the psychiatrist that Steve was busy that day, that she’d forgotten to invite him to her session so that she could discuss this request with him in a different environment. She’d had a feeling he would say no. He pretty much did by making it about him being there for him to be okay with it. But it couldn’t be that way. Leanna needed to be alone when she faced the soldier. It had to feel personal, because it was.

Not recognizing her own face in the reflection of the mirrors on the ceiling, Leanna begins to feel very awkward. She clears her throat, not sounding at all like herself. It’s strange to look and sound like someone else. But it works when she opens the photo on her phone and zooms in on agent Claire’s badge barcode, holding it up to the scanner. The elevator starts to descend, and her heart sinks. She can’t wait for this to end, but she doesn’t bother stopping the elevator as it ticks down. When the doors open, she feels as though she’s glued in place momentarily, until someone passes the elevator. She steps out. She then realizes that she doesn’t even know which way to go. But she spots signs that read _interrogation_ , and figures that this is her best shot. It doesn’t take long for Leanna to find that she’s in the right place. She’s looking through a one-way mirror at the winter soldier. Someone is talking to him. It’s Dr. Branson.

“Oh, Claire, right?! You were supposed to get those files about the…what’s it called…?” Leanna’s heart races again as an agent she’s only spoken to once or twice makes his way over to her, waving.

“Well, I think they’re refraining from calling it _truth serum_ , because that’s kind of ridiculous, but it’s still in the prototype stages, right?”

“…Yes,” Leanna says with confidence, despite not having any idea what this agent is talking about.

“I don’t remember if Perry gave those files to you or not. He went home sick. I’ll go check his desk for you. Just give me a few minutes.”

“Uh huh,” she says, staring in at Bucky again. He’s restrained in a chair which has his neck, wrists, and ankles locked up. He appears to be staring through Dr. Branson, whose voice she can hear asking him to tell her where he thinks he is.

“Yeah, he’s _really_ scary. I haven’t been watching much of it. We’re still working on how to unscramble his brain. I think it would be really sad if he stayed like that. I mean, Captain Rogers is _devastated_ ,” the agent explains.

“You heard how he let Sergeant Barnes out of that chair the other night, right? Barnes broke the Captain’s sternum. I gotta wonder what Rogers was thinking.”

“What?” Leanna asks in utter shock.

“You didn’t hear about that? Yeah, your division isn’t really into gossip, I guess. They’re too busy with that _truth serum_.”

Leanna spares the agent a glance.

“Hey, you didn’t hear it from me,” the agent starts, looking both ways before lowering his voice, “But I heard that Cap was the one to find that agent, Leanna. She was being held captive along with Barnes. I heard she was being used as a human incubator, or something sick and awful like that. I think he took her off the team, it was so bad. They think it was Barnes who assaulted her. Something about trying to make more super soldiers. I don’t know why they wouldn’t just use test tubes, right? Obviate the need for human gestation—not that I think that there should be any more evil super soldiers running around…Anyways, I’ll get you those files now. You can blame Perry!”

The entire time this guy was telling Leanna her own nightmare, her blood had begun to boil hotter and hotter. How anyone besides Steve, Natasha, and some medical staff knew that much detail about what happened to her made Leanna very angry. She couldn’t really believe it. She fidgets with the mask device as soon as she’s certain no one is looking at her, and becomes Natasha now. As far as she knows, not many people interrogate, but Natasha is certainly one of them. She watches a while longer before walking around the corner to knock hard on the door. Shortly, Dr. Branson answers it.

“Ms. Romanov? I wasn’t expecting you to come in tonight,” Dr. Branson explains. For the first time, Leanna notices that there are two guards on the other side of the door, armed with some pretty serious guns, including what looked to be tranq darts and they certainly weren’t low dose.

“I thought you were heading to DC with the Captain—”

“Change of plans. He took Dr. Banner and Sam. It was a last minute decision and I didn’t really need to be there. But it’s Friday and Cap gave me orders to be down here until he gets back. He wanted me to tell you to take the night off. You know the holidays are around the corner. He’s, uh, surprising some staff with more time off.” Leanna impresses herself even with how easily she spins this lie. Dr. Branson laughs and walks back into the room to retrieve her brief case.

“Sergeant Barnes,” she says, “I’m really hoping that we can get in there and get you back. But for now I have to turn you over to agent Romanov.”

“До свидания (goodbye).” Bucky says. He glares at who he thinks is Natasha. Dr. Branson leaves the room and Leanna takes the seat she’d had at a table about five feet away from Bucky. He keeps speaking to her in Russian angrily and Leanna has no idea what he’s saying. Her heart feels about ready to burst out of her chest. She reaches under the table into her pocket slowly where she kept a pocketknife with her. Silence passes, during which time Leanna glances over at the guards who seem to suspect nothing. She wonders whether they had been there the other night, when Steve had apparently freed Bucky from this chair. She wonders why on earth Steve would have done something that stupid. Perhaps Bucky had fooled him into thinking he snapped out of it. She isn’t sure. The guards are just standing at attention, not looking particularly at Leanna.

She stands up now, Bucky still going on and on at her in Russian.

“Shut up!” she yells. She walks around the table to face him.

“You thought you could control me, didn’t you?” she asks, holding the knife to his throat now.

“You fucking lost. I don’t care if you were just following orders— _fuck you_ ,” she says through gritted teeth, drawing some blood.

“I said I would kill you when I get out of here, and I promise, now I will make it as slow and as painful as possible,” Bucky says, unmoved, gazing up at who he still believes to be Natasha. He doesn’t seem bothered by the minor cut which leaks a bead of red onto his collar.

“Why didn’t you die the _first_ time I shot you?” he asks, alluding to one of Natasha’s past missions, something Leanna had only heard minor details about. His mechanical arm whirs suddenly, causing Leanna to jump as Bucky strains against the restraints. He turns his wrist, struggling.

“Agent Romanov,” one of the guards warns, hoping that she will back away from him, “Behind the yellow line, please,” he finishes. Leanna gazes at her feet to find that there is a line drawn on the floor which separates Bucky from the table where Leanna had previously been sitting.

“I’m going to gut you, you cunt,” Bucky spits, his arm whirring again. He groans in frustration.

“Agent—”

Leanna removes the masking device and throws it aside, slashing at Bucky’s chest so that his shirt rips open and she leaves a small line of blood. He’d only winced slightly at this, and his eyes widen when he realizes that it’s Leanna. She doesn’t notice how close to him she had gotten until his metal hand is pinching her upper thigh and she gasps, falling against the chair, grasping in front of her for support, only to manage to hit a button somewhere which unleashes Bucky’s wrist. The next thing she knows, he has thrown her pocket knife square into the neck of one of the guards, who falls to the floor, sputtering. He manages to pull Leanna into his lap and use her as a shield, preventing the remaining guard from hitting him with a tranq dart.

“Pull that trigger, and I’ll snap her neck,” he warns, grasping the back of it. The guard freezes, still trying to aim past Leanna at the soldier. Leanna is frozen in place, thrust right back into the memory where the soldier had forced her to sit on his lap, touched her all over.

“Now, be a good girl and do as I say,” Bucky says softly behind her. Leanna shudders, his cold metal fingers gripping the back of her neck a bit tighter. He whispers to her so that only she can hear.

“Free my right hand.”

He’s so calm in asking her this that she would have said he sounded soothing. Her hand is trembling as she reaches for another button on the chair. She presses it and his right hand is free. He reaches for his neck next and manages to pull himself free there.

“Hit the deck!” The guard yells. Just as Leanna manages to throw herself forward, Bucky goes with her, causing the dart to miss him. She can’t tell up from down for a moment as she’s smashed beneath him and she turns in time to see him smashing his ankle free with that metal hand. He dives for the guard and shoots him in the throat with a tranq dart. It doesn’t take long for the man to fall under. He had managed to hit a panic button shortly before Bucky made it to him. She’s crawling towards the guard whose neck still contains her pocket knife, the soldier smashing the panel on the door which allows the door to open and lock. He just punches it twice and it’s kaput, smoking.

By the time Leanna pulls her pocket knife free from the guard’s body, the soldier is pointing the gun at her. He shoots, but there’s no ammo. He gazes at the guard he’d felled and realizes that there’s more darts in his holster. As he dives for it, Leanna goes for his ankle and slashes, causing him to fumble and drop the gun. She swipes it and throws it across the room before she finds herself rolling with the soldier, slicing where she can and missing when he dodges her.

He throws her hard against the wall, intending to make her lose consciousness, and she wonders how much longer it will be before someone gets inside the room. She’s screaming when he’s on top of her, trying to pin her hands to the floor. She knees him in the groin, which actually stalls him long enough for her to find her knife again. She jumps on his back and wraps her arm around his neck, but his metal hand keeps her from slashing his throat. He turns until he’s underneath her, holding her two hands back from stabbing him. In the process, she’d managed to straddle him. Despite how hard Leanna bears down, she cannot manage to get her knife to make contact with the soldier’s flesh. She tires herself out to find him staring up at her in amazement. She stops trying to stab him, panting and he just stares up at her.

“You were supposed to be mine,” he says quietly, tilting his head to the side. There is something extremely delusional about his expression. That he’s mentally ill seems like an understatement to Leanna. He’s staring at her with so much bewilderment, his brows furrowing in confusion.

“Do it,” he says, pulling her wrist towards his neck now as her hand trembles with her knife.

“Do it,” he exhales, forcing her to put pressure there, blood beginning to let. The sensation of having her legs around him becomes noticeable as the heat collects between their bodies. And for a moment, Leanna swears he’s getting hard. She’s caught off guard by this as he grits his teeth and closes his eyes, pressing her hands harder to him with the knife. She releases it, letting it clatter on the floor beside his head. His eyes open and he stares up at her again. Leanna is still panting, adrenaline high. She starts to get off him, using his chest as balance, when her hands move away from there, there’s so much blood on her palms. She isn’t sure if it’s her own from the knife slipping in her grip each time she tried to stab him, or if she’d managed to hit him a few times. Bucky sits up abruptly, and the next thing she knows, the room is filling with what looks like smoke.

She hadn’t noticed the clanging on the door of a security team trying to get in to reach her. In all the commotion with Bucky, she wasn’t focused on it. She begins to feel woozy, and she realizes now that the room is being flooded with something meant to make them fall asleep. Bucky hasn’t inhaled enough of it to feel the effects yet. He looks around casually. Leanna loses her balance. He catches her, crawling into the corner and holding her, crouched down and keeping her faced away from the door where soon a team will barge in. It seems almost as if he’s trying to shield her. He stands suddenly, taking her over his shoulder and she hears glass shattering as he breaks the one-way mirror, but he immediately begins to back up. Obviously, there was already a team waiting for him on every side. He turns away from them, clutching her out of view. He wasn’t going to get away and he realized it, but it didn’t stop him from trying to keep her away from them, as if somehow, she mattered to him. She falls to her side suddenly, still with the soldier clutching her for dear life, realizing that he is about to succumb to the gas.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas.

When Leanna comes to, things are blurry for a handful of seconds. She recognizes the same nurses who had tended to her while she recovered in the hospital wing. When she sits up, she’s told not to move too fast. The first thing Leanna does is check the time. She had been out for 2 hours. It’s almost 9 o’clock. She’s handed a cup of water and told again to move slowly, lest she fall.

“Is the Captain back yet?” she asks, suddenly wondering whether he’d heard the news about her breaking into the basement.

“Not yet. But he should be en route right now,” someone explains, handing her an NSAID for the headache she’s told to expect tonight. She’s asked whether she’s feeling okay and why she’d wanted to go down to interrogate the winter soldier. She realizes that it had turned out a lot more disastrously than she had intended. Originally, Leanna just wanted to talk to him, but when she saw him sitting there and he started berating her, even though he’d initially thought her to be Natasha, it enraged her. She’d lost control. She stands up slowly, shaking her head, not wanting to answer any more questions. And once she realizes that she has balance, Leanna starts for the door. They’re used to her leaving against medical advice at this point.

When Leanna makes it to the kitchen, it is oddly quiet. She fixes herself something to eat and then spends time pacing back and forth, wondering what she should have said or done differently. There’s no way she’s getting down there again if Steve finds out. She wonders whether he has to find out at all, and thinks that perhaps she could go and talk to security and coax them into erasing any footage of her in the interrogation room, but as she ponders it, Leanna is sure that it wouldn’t have mattered if she _did_ get someone to erase the footage: people gossiped around here. The agent who had mistaken her for Claire down in the basement seemed to know details about what happened to her that she didn’t think he should have. There’s no way Steve isn’t going to find out. Realizing this, Leanna swears at herself repeatedly. Not knowing what else to do, she hurries away to her room and practically pulls the top drawer of her dresser off its hinges in search of the anxiolytics that Dr. Cho had prescribed her.

She sits on her freshly made bed, taking very deep breaths until the meds kick in. Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out hastily to find that Steve has texted her. He’s telling her that he, Dr. Banner, Sam, and Natasha have to stay in DC for the night because they can’t miss an important meeting the following morning, but that he should be back around 1 in the afternoon the following day. And as Leanna smiles at this message, video chat starts to ring. Steve is trying to _see_ her now. She swallows hard, not wanting to pick up. She wonders if perhaps Steve already knows what she did and wants to talk to her face to face. She declines the call with a text message, saying she’s on her way to bed early.

He responds promptly with a goodnight and that he loves her. Leanna drops her phone on the nightstand. She can’t decide whether to call him back and confess before he hears what she did from somebody else. She tries to convince herself that maybe he doesn’t know, and all of the racing thoughts and lorazepam cause her to drift off where she’s sitting. When she wakes, the sun is shining in her face. It’s 8AM and Steve still isn’t back yet. She finds that he’d texted her good morning, asking what she’s doing for the day. She decides not to answer this for the time being, and goes to quench her thirst in the kitchen. She wastes time mindlessly running on the treadmill and making herself something to eat, intentionally leaving her phone in her room. It’s the weekend and it’s much quieter around the facility, to Leanna’s relief. But part of her wishes that Claire was around to talk her ear off so she wouldn’t have to think about last night’s debacle.

She finally returns to her room after a shower to find that Steve has called her twice and texted her to please answer him. She responds by apologizing and telling him she was just keeping herself busy and working out. His response is so fast that she reads the message before putting her phone down again. _As soon as I get back, I need to talk to you_. Leanna’s heart lurches. _Okay_. She puts the phone down and it doesn’t vibrate again. But she paces a moment before walking back out of her room and wandering around mindlessly. She spots the quinjet out of the windows where she’s sitting on the couch. It won’t be long before Steve finds her in the common area. Her phone vibrates and this time it’s Natasha. _Didn’t know I was in interrogation last night. What were you thinking?_ And it’s clear to Leanna that everyone must know. She thinks to try and leave the facility, take a car for a drive, but by the time she’s standing up, Sam’s laugh can be heard coming around the corner. And she spots Steve before Sam even gets there.

“It doesn’t count, man! You run _faster_ than an Olympic athlete! Run like a normal dude for once, then we’ll see what’s fair,” Sam explains. Steve’s smile fades when he glances in Leanna’s direction, simultaneously slapping Sam on the back and promising him a race during tomorrow’s work out. Natasha looks at Steve and then shoots Leanna a warning glance before making her way past into the kitchen. Dr. Banner is following after Natasha, saying something about how he doesn’t particularly like matcha but is willing to try a smoothie.

“Think I’m going to get in on one of those. You guys want smoothies?” Sam asks, following after Banner. Steve doesn’t bother to look at Sam when he responds.

“I was about to catch up with Le on something. Just set some aside for us—thanks.”

Sam nods, disappearing, and Leanna starts for the stairs, but Steve beats her to them, grabbing her arm.

“I need to talk to you,” he says.

“Yeah? What is it?”

He looks very upset now and a lump forms in Leanna’s throat. He starts pulling Leanna towards the hall where their rooms are, and she nearly trips.

“Steve—where are—hey, slow down,” she begs. He turns the corner, passing her room, and she glances back at her closed door wondering why he didn’t just go in there.

“What the _hell_ is the matter with you?” he asks, knowing they’re out of earshot now. He pulls her into his room, letting go of her arm abruptly and she nearly falls again. He slams the door shut, causing her to jump a moment.

“Why would you _do_ that?!” he demands. She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath, “After you promised me you wouldn’t?!”

She gazes at him, her eyes welling up, hoping his anger will abate, but it doesn’t. She opens her mouth, not knowing what to say. She shakes her head.

“I asked you a question,” Steve barks, stepping towards her. She takes a few steps back before turning away from him.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice wavering, “I just couldn’t wait,” she explains, Steve stands in front of her.

“You’re out of control,” he says, narrowing his eyes. She wipes hers.

“You were never going to let me go down there. I told you that I needed to confront him—”

“While he’s not himself? You know _exactly_ what he could have done to you! It’s like you don’t even realize who you’re dealing with!”

“I know exactly what I was dealing with—I spent weeks _dealing_ with it while you sat on your ass and they tortured me!”

Steve’s expression is taken aback. He shakes his head.

“ _That’s_ what you think I was doing? You have no _goddamn_ idea how hard it was to find you—Bucky included.”

Immediately, Leanna regrets her choice of words.

“You have _no idea_!”

He grabs her shoulders hard.

“You know something…I don’t regret going down there. It doesn’t fix everything that’s fucked up with me, but it felt _good_ to do something,” she explains. She shrugs Steve’s hands off her shoulders.

“You just don’t understand.”

“ _I_ don’t understand? How can you even say that to me? Do you not know the pain I’ve been in for weeks because of what he did? And you run down there and try to make it happen again!”

Leanna throws her hands up in frustration.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I was sent that footage. What were you going to do, Le? Kill him? It seemed like that’s what you were going to do.”

She swallows hard.

“Well, I didn’t, so...” her eyes water again, “Your best friend is just fine.”

Steve shakes his head.

“I can’t trust you,” he says, looking as though a bulb is going off above his head, “You can’t be trusted,” he says, looking her directly in the eyes.

“Steve, that’s not true,” she begs.

“No. I’m not going to tolerate that kind of insubordination. Somebody died last night because of what you did,” Steve explains. At this, Leanna’s eyebrows furrow in confusion for a moment, before she recalls the guard who Bucky had thrown her pocket knife at. She realizes that she never left the basement with that knife. There’s no doubt in her mind that it’s in an evidence locker now.

“His name was Miles Thompson, he was 38 years old from Long Island, and he was a guard who stayed loyal to us after S.H.I.E.L.D. was compromised. Did you know that, Leanna?”

She cries silently, covering her mouth, shaking her head, regretting her actions.

“He worked with us for _five years_ …and now he’s dead because you disobeyed me and you went down there when I told you not to go without me. He would still be alive right now if you hadn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Leanna wails, “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt! I wasn’t going to—”

“It doesn’t matter what you _meant_ to do. What matters is what actually happened, Leanna.”

Steve watches her weep for a handful of seconds, still looking pretty stern. His shoulders drop as he sighs with what sounds like reluctance and disappointment.

“I hereby relieve you…of your duties as an Avengers agent,” he says calmly.

“…What?”

“Your position as an agent is obsolete—”

“Steve—wait—”

He tears her key card off its clip on her shirt so quickly that she doesn’t understand what he’s doing for a couple of seconds.

“Effective immediately,” he finishes.

“Steve, don’t!” Leanna cries. She reaches for his arm as he starts around her and he moves so fast that it slips from her grasp.

“Steve!” She follows him but he pushes her further into the room as he begins to leave it.

“ _Don’t do this_ ,” Leanna begs, crying uncontrollably now. His eyes are wide and unreadable as he rips his arm out of her grasp again before closing the door abruptly. And as she tries to turn the handle, it doesn’t budge, the sound of something beeping on the other side meeting her ears.

“ _Steve_!” Leanna yells, pounding on the door. He had locked her in. She takes a step back to stare at the door in disbelief. And with shaky hands, she reaches for the buttons on the wall and punches in her birthday, but the door remains locked. He had really done it. That was it? Leanna drops face first on the bed crying. Nothing this extreme had ever crossed her mind, even when she thought about how upset Steve would be that she didn’t listen to him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspirational song for this chapter is a song called “War” by a Belgian band called Brutus. Feel free to play it as you read for the mood. I like incorporating images/gifs and music at times to try and make the read feel as much like a moving picture as possible. Gonna be switching points of view for a bit. Anyway, I digress…

It kills Steve in his heart of hearts to inactivate Leanna. He’d had enough trouble just deactivating her access to the basement, even when she didn’t know about it originally. He was never going to tell her about that one. There was no reason she ever needed to be down there. He knew she’d seen it before when receiving her first tour of the facility, but she was never an interrogator. He wonders how she managed to get down there, thinking about it very hard on his way down the hall, Leanna’s pounding on his door no longer audible. He barely notices Natasha calling his name as he makes it past the kitchen. He pauses to find her lifting a glass of something green at the table with Sam, Dr. Banner, and even Thor.

“Where’s Leanna?” Natasha asks, turning her head to look in the direction which Steve had just come from. He glances behind him, trying to keep a plain expression.

“She’s taking a nap. Guess she trained in the gym all day waiting for us to get back,” he lies.

“Oh. Well, I’ll refrigerate one for her…Where are you headed?” Natasha asks when he continues for the stairs.

“I need to check in on some things. You can leave me something in the fridge, too. Thank you.”

He doesn’t wait any longer, leaving Thor’s hello on thin air. Natasha detects that something is up, but she doesn’t bother to follow after Steve. She texts Leanna, asking what she’s up to as the Captain hurries away. Steve jabs angrily at the elevator buttons, pacing an impatient moment. In his anger, he had forgotten there is no stairwell access to the basement. He thinks about Claire again, having also forgotten that at some point, Leanna managed to disguise herself as the agent, and then Natasha. He swears under his voice. This whole thing is ultimately his own fault. He shouldn’t have had Claire occupying Leanna’s time. He figures that Leanna had probably found a way to swipe Claire’s badge, or something. Sometimes Steve forgets how smart some agents are. That’s why Leanna had made as far as the original team. Blaming himself, Steve tells himself that he should have foreseen this.

He’s able to take the elevator all the way down to the basement in one go. Agent Hill greets him at its doors. He had texted her to debrief him on the whole incident on his way there.

“But he’s _awake_?” Steve asks.

“And asking for you,” Maria adds, handing Steve a folder in which the whole event has been accounted for, complete with a handful of snapshots of the dead guard, his employee details, and a flash drive of the security camera footage.

“And it’s not going to come up again in _any_ of our databases?” he asks, holding up the drive. Maria nods.

“Not a single soul will have access to it again. What’s in your hands is all that’s left with Leanna in view.”

“Thank you,” Steve sighs, pocketing the flash drive. He hasn’t broken the news of letting Leanna go just yet. Part of him doesn’t want to actually go to HR and finalize this decision. Anything he said went, and all he had left to do was process her paperwork and exit interview. He reasons that there’s plenty of time to do all of that, telling himself that he did it not because he wants to make her unhappy, but because what she’d done posed a safety threat. He was thinking objectively when he did it, but it was still hard to hold back his feelings. He just had to do it quickly and get out of there. He couldn’t look at her knowing how upset she was.

Steve pauses at another door, which requires biometric access. He waits patiently as Agent Hill scans her prints and retina, before the door opens and not far inside, he finds Bucky in yet another reinforced chair, except this time, his bionic arm is on the other side of the room behind a locked safe door. The staff reasoned that this time it was their best bet of him not breaking free a third time. Both the first chairs he was being kept in were broken and on their way up to the science division for fixing. Bucky’s eyes widen and he seems to be fighting against whatever sedative he’s on now.

“ _Steve_.”

Steve steps closer gradually, slowly, uncertainly.

“God, I swear it’s _me,_ Steve. It’s me. I’m not the bad guy anymore. Please let me out of this, Steve.”

The Captain lowers his gaze to meet Bucky’s eyes, which flutter sleepily.

“I can’t do that, pal. Not just yet. You’re injured.”

“What did I do?” Bucky asks, “This time…” he breathes, “I remember…hurting her—”

Bucky’s voice breaks and his lip quivers. He groans.

“It wasn’t _me_ Steve. I…it wasn’t me.”

“I know, Buck.”

“…You have to kill me.”

“What?”

“You have to kill me. It’s all still there…in my head. I don’t know if it’ll ever go away. I can’t be trusted.” As Bucky explains himself, Steve’s own words echo in his head. He’d said the same thing to Leanna moments prior.

“They got to me. They made me the winter soldier _again_. He’s still _inside_ of me, Steve!” Bucky explains desperately, weeping. His pale face drips with tears and when he gazes into the Captain’s eyes, Steve knows that he’s talking to James Barnes now.

“They think…maybe it was the smoke in the interrogation room. It’s a new compound,” Agent Hill explains, her arms crossed where she stands at the door several feet behind Steve when he turns to look at her.

“That broke him out of it?”

“We think so.”

“Steve, you have to kill me…it’s the only way to make sure that I never—”

“No one else is going to die here, Buck,” Steve promises.

“Someone else?” Bucky asks, furrowing his brows.

“Steve, who did I kill? I killed someone last night, didn’t I?”

Steve sighs, not wanting to cause Bucky any more pain. He presses the back of his hand against Bucky’s forehead and Bucky flinches, seemingly surprised that Steve would dare to touch him. He was afraid he would snap again. He couldn’t even trust himself.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky chokes.

And he finally passes out, the chair he’s in converting into a table where he remains restrained and a few doctors and nurse’s begin to draw some blood and throw a cooling blanket over him.

“He’s going to need some work,” Maria explains, “He did hit his head when he fell. So maybe it wasn’t just the gas. But we think he’s back again.”

“That’s him,” Steve states. He sighs, hating to see the condition that Bucky is in now, knowing he’s just as tormented as Leanna.

“Look, I want _minimal_ clearance on this,” Steve explains, “I don’t want word getting out that he’s alright.” Maria nods and he knows it will be taken care of. The last thing that Steve wants is for Leanna to know that they have Bucky again. He had to figure out the best way to keep her out of the way. She was already trying to self-destruct. He wasn’t sure what she would do if she saw Bucky a second time. Perhaps, even if she knew it was really him, she would still try to kill him again.

“I need a minute. Excuse me.”

Steve walks slowly down the hall, away from the room, wiping his eye a couple of times. Bucky said he remembered hurting her. He was hoping that if Bucky came back, he wouldn’t remember any of that. Some things he seemed to remember doing, others he didn’t. Steve collects himself before walking back to the room to watch Bucky be operated on. Leanna managed to cut and stab him pretty badly in a couple of places. If she really wanted to, she could have killed him. What scared Steve more was that in that footage, there was a moment where she nearly had him, the only thing keeping her from his throat being that shiny arm. And he seemed to be trying to coax her to slit his throat. Despite her rage, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. But he _wanted_ her to.

_Where are you?_ Leanna finally reads a text from Natasha. She sits up, having stopped crying in Steve’s bed and instead gone to staring at the ceiling. _Steve took me off the team. He took my key card. I can’t leave his room. I don’t know where he went._ Leanna waits for Natasha’s response hopefully. _I’m sorry. I can’t get in there. Why did you have to do it?_ Leanna sighs with irritation and doesn’t bother to answer. She and Natasha know full well that Steve isn’t going to just leave her in here indefinitely. Leanna assumes he’d gone to be debriefed on what happened in the basement, but wondering when he’ll be back starts to bother her. She’d been locked in rooms before and didn’t like it. At least this time wasn’t as traumatizing because she knew that no one would be coming in to rape her.

She ponders it and wonders how the hell Steve could love her and do what he did. The rational part of her brain, the part that has been the quietest for a while, tells her that she’d gotten somebody killed. An innocent man who was just doing his job and didn’t deserve to die. That was _her_ fault. She begins to understand why Steve deactivated her, but it still hurts, and she starts to cry angrily again. She continues pacing, trying the code on his door again and pounding on it when it doesn’t unlock. _Steve just called a meeting we’re all going into. I don’t know for how long_. Leanna reads Natasha’s text again and sighs. _Do you want me to talk to him?_ Leanna wipes her nose on the neck of her shirt. _NO_ , she responds in capital letters.

She starts to feel extremely embarrassed. Everyone seemed to want to parent her in some sort of way. It felt as though she were grounded. Leanna wonders how much longer her phone will last, the battery running down to 40%. She finds that she’s been pacing and staring out the window for two hours now. What could Steve possibly be doing? Maybe he was catching up on all the things he missed when he stayed by her side the past few weeks. Thankfully, Steve’s room has its own private adjoining bathroom, where Leanna manages to relieve herself and steal a drink from the sink a couple of times as she moves into her third hour being on lockdown.

She sighs, throwing herself supine on Steve’s bed. She likes the way that it smells like him, something vaguely sandalwood. For a moment, Leanna even imagines Steve holding her there, his warmth something that always makes her feel at peace. His body is warmer than the average guy, something probably having to do with the serum and how it affected his metabolism, and it kept her cozy at night when she’d struggle to sleep. Feeling sorry, she wishes that Steve would just walk through the door right now so that she could apologize to him and pour her heart out. An idea pops into her head. A very stupid one. Something that she’d only seen done in movies as she stares at some sort of vent on the ceiling.

Determined, she starts to push a small desk from the corner towards an area underneath the vent. The piece of furniture, which seems to be in everyone’s room, allows Leanna to reach the vent when she stands on her toes atop it. She realizes for a few seconds that even if she makes it up inside of this thing, she doesn’t know the building’s blueprints. She doesn’t know where the hell she would be going. She could just end up in the men’s locker room. In her head, this makes her laugh. But she manages to start hoisting herself upwards, and the vent gives way. Leanna manages a small gasp before falling, hitting her head on something, and blacking out.

“Everyone in this room,” Steve begins, glancing at the door to make sure it’s locked, “Are the only people I want privy to this information,” Steve begins. He glances around the table at Wanda, Natasha, Sam, Thor, Dr. Banner, and Clint.

“Bucky is awake. What I mean is, it appears that he’s himself again. I don’t want to go into detail about how, but he is. But for now, I want it to stay on the down low. There’s a lot that’s gone on in the past month, and I’ve come to learn that word travels fast around here. I really don’t want it to negatively impact Leanna’s recovery. She hasn’t been doing so well, and as I’m sure you’ve noticed, she hasn’t been on active duty lately.”

“Was that her choice or Dr. Cho’s recommendation?” Natasha inquires, cocking a flaming eyebrow.

“A combination,” Steve explains.

“All I know is, we need to keep this between us. Sometimes I think we need to fire a lot of folks and start fresh. There’s just too much gossip around here,” Steve explains.

“Speaking of gossip, does everyone know that you and agent Leanna are, uh, dating? …I can keep a secret,” Thor states, shrugging, glancing around the table and wondering why Steve would call them into a meeting just to say this. Steve flushes bright red for a few seconds as Wanda smiles widely.

“But she’s okay, right?” Wanda asks, “I mean, I’ve seen her here, but not a lot. I thought maybe she moved out of the facility.”

“She’s thought about it. She spent a lot of time in Dr. Cho’s care,” Steve explains, “We have a couple of places off site that she’s going to be staying for a while.” He’s sort of making it up as he goes, but Steve had realized shortly after locking Leanna in his quarters, that he couldn’t keep her there forever. He can’t find the heart to tell them he’d terminated her. He somewhat abruptly ends the conversation, not wanting to answer more questions, unable to stand the look that Natasha is giving him from where she sits. So far as he knows, she’s the only other person who has seen the footage of Leanna in the interrogation room, and she knows that he’s upset with what she did. When the room clears, Natasha practically runs Steve down.

“You _fired_ her, didn’t you?” she asks.

“ _Shhh_.”

Steve gazes past her to be sure everyone is out of earshot.

“Nat—enough. This is none of your business. I get that you’re friends with her, but this is _not_ your decision to make.”

“God, Steve, you _did_ fire her!”

He starts around her, sighing with frustration. Natasha heckles him by blocking the door.

“After everything she went through, how hard she worked just to make it on our team, you’re gonna throw her off just like that—?!”

“A man is _dead_ because of what she did,” Steve explains, closing the conference room door, “ _Dead_. Didn’t you see that footage?”

Natasha sighs, frowning and crossing her arms.

“If you were me, what would you have done? She came to me and I knew she wanted to hurt him—I _knew_ it—”

“Can you blame her?”

“No. No, I can’t. But I _can’t_ have her working with us in the field if she _can’t listen_. It’s not just because I care about Bucky. I care about Leanna, too, damnit. He could have hurt her again, Nat.”

“Okay, you have a point there. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’re not the one I have to worry about. Just… _please_ do not tell anybody anything about what happened or me firing her.”

“You know my lips are sealed,” Natasha promises, breezing past him and leaving him alone in the conference room. He sighs, deflating. It was a bad day, and the Captain just wanted it to be over. He checks his watch, realizing he’d left Leanna alone much longer than he had meant to. He figured he would try and go in with an olive branch, so he picks up the two smoothies Natasha had made earlier from the fridge, pausing in Leanna’s room to grab her lorazepam, in case she hadn’t calmed down yet. He pauses outside of his door to place the glasses down before punching in the code that kept his quarters locked.

“Le?” he calls, but the moment he steps inside and sees her feet where she’s lying on the floor, the rest of her hidden by his bed, he panics. He rushes over to find that a piece of the vent has fallen, and as he gazes down at her closed eyes, he puts the pieces together. She didn’t go out the window because it was too far a drop, but she was going to try and get out of there one way or the other. He’s certain that she’s lost her mind now, and as he continues frantically shouting her name, his heart begins to crumble.

“Anna?! Please, baby…no… _Leanna!_ ”

He places his ear to her lips and feels a slight breeze, tears stinging his eyes with relief. When he gazes down at her, she’s finally coming to. There is a very small puddle of blood around her head, which she had managed to hit on the desk she’d apparently used to reach the vents.

“Leanna,” he breathes with relief. She begins to sit up and he stops her.

“No. Don’t move—you’re hurt,” he explains. Leanna’s vision becomes clearer and a few warm drops hit her forehead. When she realizes that Steve is crying, she wishes she hadn’t tried to escape. He calls for someone from the hospital wing to bring a stretcher to his quarters, dropping his phone and not bothering to hang it up.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice quiet and weak.

“ _What were you_ _thinking_?” Steve asks her, his voice tangled with anger and worry simultaneously.

“Are you _trying_ to kill yourself?” he asks her. Leanna turns on her side, reaching for the leg of the desk to help lift herself into a sitting position.

“Damnit—I told you not to _move_. Your head is bleeding,” he explains, applying pressure there. He realizes that she’s either too stunned to listen to him or that she doesn’t want to, so he picks her up bodily in time to find a handful of nurses with a walking stretcher waiting for him.


	13. Chapter 13

“Steve, I’m _sorry_!” Leanna cries again, this time practically jumping out of the bed.

“I don’t want apologies, Leanna. I want you to stop throwing yourself in harm’s way,” he explains, his brawny arms attempting to get her to lie back down.

“ _Please_. I’ll do whatever you tell me to. I will. Just please—”

“Leanna, it’s not going to happen,” Steve states with finality. She turns away from him, ducking her shoulder out from under his grasp, crying. He sighs, sitting close to her from behind. She inches closer to the edge of the bed, away from him. He glances at the bandage on the back of her head sadly.

“Leanna…you have to know that I’m not doing any of this to hurt you. You’re out of _control_ , honey. You could have gotten yourself _killed_. Twice in twenty-four hours. I didn’t fire you because I’m angry, I did it to protect you.” He passes a hand down her back and she turns around to glare at him through her tears. It stings to feel as though she hates him. Steve can’t stand it. All he wants to do is hold her, but she’s inconsolable. He sighs.

“I know that you’re angry…angry with me. But I also know that if you were me, you would have done the same thing. _I’m on your side_ , Le. And until you realize that, until you can handle yourself appropriately— _safely_ — I have to help you make decisions that you’re not capable of making for yourself.” She gives him the silent treatment. She was lucky to have been alive, and deep down she knew it. She’d already ached bodily from the soldier throwing her against the wall in the interrogation room, and now her head adds to all of this.

“It’s going to be Christmas, Anna,” Steve explains, struggling to look far enough over her shoulder to meet her gaze, “Just think of it as one of the vacations we talked about taking. It’ll be quiet. It’ll just be us.” He kisses her shoulder lingeringly. To Steve’s relief, Leanna doesn’t rip away from this gesture.

“…What about this place? What are they supposed to do without you around?”

“Sam will be in charge for a while. I trust him to handle things when I’m away. It’s happened before, when I was looking for you and Natasha.” Leanna didn’t have any other family. The team was all she knew. Her home was the facility, and she didn’t like the idea of being away from it. She had never been to Steve’s old apartment. She didn’t even know he still kept it. All she knew is that it probably didn’t have all of the amenities she had here, and she was angry that he thought he was helping her by removing her from the facility.

“He’s awake, that’s why you don’t want me here,” she explains, finally turning to face him. Steve doesn’t answer her and she scoffs and shakes her head.

“You think I’m going to go after him again,” she adds. Steve sighs, looking frustrated.

“Please get some rest. We’re leaving in the morning.”

Steve wanders to the window to gaze out at the night with crossed arms, and Leanna realizes that he’s not going to leave her room in the hospital wing. That he doesn’t trust her to just be on her own hurts more than him firing her.

Steve’s apartment is actually kind of cute, and Leanna can’t help but occupy herself with his old records. In just a few days, Steve had managed to convince Leanna to go tree shopping with him. They had settled on a tiny one that fit in his living room. He cooked them dinner or took Leanna out to eat at night, and she had gradually stopped being so upset with him. She’d do yoga in his kitchen every morning. She began to take her meds consistently so that she could maintain a much more stable mood. She stopped having thoughts about trying to hurt Bucky. She even started to go for walks with Steve during the day in the city.

When she’d carefully asked, Steve had only told her that Bucky was in physical rehab at the facility and undergoing psychotherapy, but that he was awake again and appeared to be himself. She doesn’t bother to ask Steve if or when she might be able to see him, but she knew that Steve wanted to go see him. He wouldn’t because he didn’t want to thwart Leanna’s progress in healing, which she seemed to be finally getting a handle of over the course of the week. She learns not to bring Bucky up as much, as it would have caused Steve to worry that she wasn’t getting any better. She continues to have sessions with Dr. Branson, who comes to Steve’s apartment. He would leave during these sessions out of respect for Leanna’s privacy, but she couldn’t help wondering if he would go to the facility during those times to check up on Bucky. Sometimes her sessions were more than an hour long, and Leanna wondered if Steve had spoken privately with Dr. Branson to make that happen so that he would have time to slip away and see Bucky.

Leanna wonders about this but doesn’t ask him one night when he’s lying beside her, thumbing through a Bible that he keeps on the nightstand, which he would read out loud to her before bed. Somehow, despite her not being religious, it was a peaceful routine that Leanna had grown fond of. Steve pauses, gazing at her. It isn’t until he closes the book and turns on his side to face her that she realizes he can tell she’s thinking about something.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks. Leanna grins at him.

“Nothing.” She shrugs.

“I can tell you’re thinking about something,” Steve explains, rubbing her arm. Just then she closes her eyes, and the most pleased expression graces her face.

“Are you okay?” he asks. She opens her eyes and he finds her staring at his bare chest. He’s in only his boxers, as there’s an issue in the building with the heat, which is keeping it too hot in Steve’s apartment. They have the windows cracked to let in some of the December breeze, and Leanna’s shorts are shorter than anything Steve has ever seen her wear. Leanna finally responds by palming Steve’s chest. Its heat is entirely overwhelming, considering the heat that’s already pumping through the furnace. Yet still, she inches closer to him. She kisses him wholeheartedly. This feels good to the Captain, so much that he can’t fathom breaking it, as he often does. But he feels that Leanna has begun to thrive in a way that she wasn’t while at the facility, and he figures that perhaps it’s about time he allows things to progress more naturally. He drops his Bible somewhere, Leanna straddling him and grinding on him through their clothing. He sighs blissfully a moment, clutching her waist and biting his lower lip.

He gazes down at Leanna’s dancing hips, wanting her to be free of her pajamas. He moans, gazing up into her eyes. The lust that clouds them makes him hard instantly. Originally, he couldn’t touch her so sensually without worrying that he was causing bad memories to flare up, but he can tell now that Leanna needs him, and to keep denying her would have been unfair. He starts to pull his boxers down and Leanna climbs off him to start undressing herself. He gazes over at her with anticipation as she frees her perfect and plump breasts. He had seen her naked before but it was far more exciting that she was this close to him while naked. She climbs atop him again and when she grips his member gently, he starts to sweat. A moment passes, during which time Leanna seems to struggle with getting him inside. She leans against his chest with frustration.

“What’s wrong?” he asks with concern.

Leanna gazes down at him, her head tilting to the side. He was growing eager, but wanted to be sure she was okay, that she was ready for this to happen.

“I don’t know. Sometimes it’s easier if I’m on my back,” she explains, blushing. Steve sits up to carefully reposition their bodies and Leanna reaches for him again.

“Are you sure, Le?” he asks, pausing on his elbows atop her.

“Steve, please. Touch me.”

She responds by guiding him to her entrance and he gently progresses. She closes her eyes a moment, taking a deep breath, trying not to think about the last time she’d been touched sexually, which for some reason begins to flash in her mind as Steve kisses her forehead, massages her hip with his large hand. Maybe it’s the sensation of weight being on her. She reluctantly recalls the first night that Bucky was on her like that, his weight. Steve slides inside of her and she gasps. As if on cue, there’s pain and Leanna groans, wincing. She presses up fervently against Steve’s abdomen.

“No—stop!”

He pulls out abruptly, gazing down at her with worry. She hadn’t noticed her tears until she tries to focus on his face.

“I’m sorry—I can’t. I can’t,” she weeps, gasping.

“It’s alright, Annie—it’s okay,” Steve reassures her lovingly, understandingly, sitting up and giving her space where she’s holding her hands over her eyes and panting anxiously. She felt like she couldn’t breathe suddenly. She figures she had psyched herself out mentally. She can’t stop thinking about the winter soldier now, his hands grabbing her, him thrusting inside of her roughly, wickedly, without love.

“Leanna…it’s going to be okay. You have to breathe, honey,” Steve begs, and she feels his hands on her shoulders, pulling her grip off her eyes. He’s handing her a pill suddenly, and she sits up to take it. She didn’t even notice him getting up to go get her a glass of water for it. Steve sits patiently facing her where she clutches her chest, crying silently, taking deep breaths, until she’s calm again, thanks to the medicine. She needn’t have explained to him what happened. And then him breaking all of their kisses made so much sense to her. She wasn’t hurt anymore physically; all of the physical wounds had healed. Mentally, she was still hurting, enough that she couldn’t even let Steve make love to her the way that she wanted. When she finally looks at him, he just looks sad and it breaks her heart.

“It’s not your fault, Steve,” she breathes, touching his cheek.

“I know,” he explains patiently.

“I just couldn’t…I couldn’t…”

“It’s okay, Le.”

“I couldn’t get him off of me,” she explains, her voice breaking, hugging her knees. Steve maneuvers closer to her until he’s holding her, and she feels whole again.

“I _tried_. I tried so hard, Steve. I fought,” she explains, “I couldn’t get him _off_.”

“It’s not your fault, baby…It never was.”

On Christmas Eve, Steve invites the team over for a little party, and everything seems normal, with the exception that Bucky isn’t there. Steve had not tried to touch her anything like Leanna instigated two nights prior. Mentally, it made her crazy, but she knew she still wasn’t able to navigate that part of their relationship yet. She doesn’t know what it’s going to take. The pain had come out of nowhere, out of her thoughts and traumatizing memories. Steve had been right before about not wanting it to be triggering for her. She thought she was well enough to handle it, but she was wrong.


	14. Chapter 14

“Well, you _are_ coming to the New Year party, aren’t you?” Natasha asks, gazing up at the stars. Leanna swallows some more of her alcohol-free punch. She had made two different bowls because she figured that alcohol wouldn’t go well with her meds at night. Natasha shoots her a glance before looking back into Steve’s crowded apartment.

“Hot as hell in there…Are you ever coming back, Le?”

Leanna stares into the room at Steve, shrugging.

“Steve didn’t just take me off the team, Nat. He fired me. I don’t know. Maybe he’ll change his mind. I’m getting better. In a way, I’m kind of glad he did…I think I was beginning to self-destruct when I went for Bucky.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want? Not to come back? …I think that sometimes Steve is overbearing. The hero complex is _very_ strong with him. He thinks that everyone has to be saved at all times. But him locking you in his room like he did…Well, if I were you, I think I would have broken up with him after that.”

“It has actually crossed my mind,” Leanna admits, stirring the straw in her punch.

“Are you here because you want to be here, or because Steve made you leave?”

“He didn’t exactly _make_ me…well, I guess he did. I didn’t think there was a choice. Steve calls the shots.”

“Yes—but within _reason_ , Le. We all still vote on a lot of decisions. There’s no I in team. Don’t forget that,” Natasha explains, staring with furrowed brows through the windows at Steve. She seems to be pissed off with him, and as he throws his head back and laughs, Leanna catches Natasha rolling her eyes.

“I need more alcohol. I’m sorry. Refill?” She asks, reaching for Leanna’s solo cup. Leanna is still staring at Steve.

“Hey…are you okay with being here?” Natasha asks, standing in front of Leanna and blocking her view of Steve. She looks at Natasha now.

“Yeah, it’s—it’s actually been very peaceful. I’m planning on talking to Steve about letting me move back soon, though. I didn’t take all of my stuff so a lot of it is still there. I have a feeling he’ll cave at some point and let me back on the team. I think you’re right about him being overbearing. But I’m fine. I promise. He’s otherwise been very good to me.” Leanna nods. Natasha smiles and walks back into the apartment to refill their drinks. By the time Natasha comes back, she can’t help but swear that someone has been walking up and down the street repeatedly. She can’t really tell without her contacts in from this far away, but she swears the same guy has just been pacing the street, almost as if he were lost or something. Leanna chats somewhat distractedly with Natasha for a little bit longer before Natasha tries to coax her back into the apartment where it’s warmer.

“H-hang on. I just want a quiet moment to myself before I come back in,” Leanna explains.

“Okay. I’ll see you inside.”

Natasha pulls the sliding glass door shut behind her, looking at Leanna curiously. Natasha always knows when something is up. It’s like she has some kind of sixth sense, but she doesn’t try to force Leanna to open up any more than she has tonight. Leanna stares over the balcony at the street now. And when she gazes down at someone, she realizes they are gazing up at her. She squints a little bit harder and swears that it’s Bucky’s face she sees, but he starts to walk away swiftly down the street, not bothering to look back. Her heart rate increases. She’s sure it was him.

“ _There_ you are.”

Leanna gasps as Steve snatches her away from the ledge where she was leaning, and very well could have fallen.

“Jesus, what were you doing leaning over the balcony like that?” he asks with alarm. He had scared her out of her skin. She didn’t even hear the glass door open when he came out.

“God, Steve…you scared the _shit_ out of me,” Leanna breathes, hand over her chest.

“I can say the same, Annie. You looked like you were about to fall over my damn balcony,” Steve admits. His concern is palpable and Leanna looks away from him down the street, where she doesn’t see anyone anymore.

“Someone was out there, Steve,” she explains, searching again. The Captain keeps a grip on her waist, guiding her away from the balcony.

“Le…you’re scaring me,” he says cautiously.

“Were you drinking?” he asks. Leanna finally stops looking into the night and turns around to face Steve.

“ _No_ ,” she says, picking up her solo cup from atop the little table and pressing it into Steve’s chest before beginning to walk around him, “Taste for yourself.” She makes her way into the warmth of the apartment. Leanna can feel Steve’s gaze all the while she starts to chat up Wanda, and she only spares him a glance once before she continues to ignore him. She even wanders down to the street with Wanda and Natasha on their way to go back to the facility, saying she’d walk them out. She’d just wanted to get some more air and didn’t think she would make it to Steve’s balcony again because he pretty much stayed posted in the kitchen which led to it.

The women beg her to try and make it to the party on the New Year and Leanna says she’ll try to swing by, knowing she’s going to have to have another discussion with Steve first. Wanda buckles herself in the passenger’s side of Natasha’s shiny black ride, and they drive off into the night. It had begun to snow lightly, and Leanna gazes up under the street light as the flakes fall quietly around her. She glances up and down the street to find that no one is there. Maybe it had been her imagination when she saw Bucky. She’s not entirely sure. She starts back towards the building and once inside, shakes the snow off her shoulders. She had pondered taking the stairs or the elevator and stood out there long enough to collect the cold on her person. But as she starts for the elevator, someone standing there in a hat and hoodie causes her to pause. She stands there quietly. Though she can’t see the face, the stature and the figure are familiar. She starts towards him and a few drunk girls stumble past her, blocking her progress as they head out of the building. Leanna starts towards him again and then she stands just a few feet away from him, behind him, her mouth open but not knowing what to say. She shakes her head, closing her eyes for a handful of seconds, wondering if she is just crazy and this is merely a figment of her imagination projected. Perhaps Natasha had refilled her on the wrong punch.

She reaches for his shoulder, her hand trembling. Something buzzes and he pulls his phone out of the pocket of his jeans, unlocks it, reads, sighs. He turns around at long last, ready to leave. Bucky is surprised to see her, judging by the wideness of his electric eyes. Bucky stares down at Leanna, the elevator finally making it to the lobby and opening behind him, people chattering and laughing on their way out to enjoy Christmas Eve dinner. Bucky’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out of it. Leanna had stopped trying to reach for him. So, it _was_ Bucky who she had seen walking up and down the street. Had he been trying to figure out if he wanted to go up there? As far as she knows, he hadn’t been invited. Perhaps he just wanted to talk with Steve and didn’t want to catch anyone’s attention. Leanna glances to her right, his left, to find that the sleeve of his hoodie is empty. His arm isn’t there. He inhales deeply, still stunned that Leanna is face to face with him now. He looks past her briefly before he rushes for the exit at breakneck speed, leaving Leanna standing there, confused. It isn’t long before Steve appears at her side. He presses the button on the elevator and it opens instantly. And then he faces Leanna, placing his hands on her shoulders.

“Why are you down here? …What’s going on with you tonight?” he asks, worried. She wonders how it had taken so long for Steve to realize that she wasn’t upstairs at the party, before recalling that when she’d left, he seemed to be furiously texting someone, looking unsure, his eyes glued to his phone.

“Leanna, you need to tell me what’s going on,” Steve begs, wrapping his arms around her, “First you’re trying to crawl off my balcony, then you disappear from the party…and now you look like you just saw a ghost. You’re scaring me,” he admits.

“N-nothing. I just was walking Wanda and Nat to the car and like I said, I thought I saw someone walking up and down the street. Just over and over again, and I kind of got spooked, I guess.” She focuses on his gaze now, grinning like nothing is wrong with her. Steve sighs.

“Well, then I wish you had let _me_ walk Natasha and Wanda out. You don’t even know who could have been out there this late. Why would you do something like that?” he asks, pushing a hand through her hair. Leanna starts around him to the elevator.

“I don’t know—I’m tired,” she says. He doesn’t seem too satisfied with her explanation, and it’s clear to her that he hadn’t seen Bucky when he was coming down the stairs to find her. He would have said something. Steve sighs again.

“I really wish you’d be more careful about that kind of thing,” he admits. Leanna leans against the wall as Steve steps inside the elevator after her. He won’t stop giving her that concerned look and she just can’t wait to get out of there and dodge him again. She remembers what Natasha had said to her on the balcony and thinks to tell Steve that he’s overbearing and it’s pissing her off. But she decides that because the party isn’t over yet, she doesn’t want to start a fight with him. She’d already given him an attitude earlier on about her drink, and she knew that he could tell she was frustrated.

Leanna busies herself by entering a conversation with Thor and Clint until it gets later and everyone has left. Steve is cleaning up in the kitchen when Leanna decides to get ready for bed. She stares into space under the hot water, wondering what Bucky was going to do. He was just standing there for so long. He had to be himself again, because she knows that if he wasn’t, he would have most likely knocked her out and carried her off somewhere to try and complete his…mission. She swears that she had seen guilt in his expression as he’d stood there looking down at her. She starts to wash her body frantically, crying as quietly as she can. When she pulls the curtain back, Steve is in the doorway, looking worried still.

“Are you always going to sneak up on me like that?” she asks.

“What’s wrong, Annie? Just _talk_ to me,” Steve begs.

“Nothing is wrong,” she says, not looking at him.

“I heard you crying,” he admits. She shuts the window which is halfway open. The heat is still haywire and keeping the apartment overheated.

“I wish you would give me some space,” she says, squeezing some toothpaste onto her toothbrush. Steve stands there just a few seconds longer before sighing and closing the door gently. She reasons that she needs to talk to him seriously about what she wants moving forward. She misses her room in the facility, being in the swing of things. It had been nice to pretend playing house here for a while, but she knows that Bucky is awake and that’s not just going to go away. If she was ever going to work on the team again, she would have to see him. At least sometimes.

Steve doesn’t come to bed after he showers and Leanna sits up, wondering why. He would usually come in and read from his Bible for a little bit. Her medicine was beginning to kick in, and she didn’t mind falling asleep to the sound of Steve’s voice. She pokes her head out of the bedroom and hears the TV not far away. When she finds Steve on the couch watching the news, she’s surprised. There’s a baseball bat on the coffee table in front of him. She’d seen it before, but it usually stayed in his closet.

“Steve?”

He looks over at her.

“Aren’t you coming to bed?” she asks him. She takes a few steps closer and realizes that he had taken a fresh sheet and a pillow to set up on the couch.

“You just said you wished I would give you space. So, I’m giving you space,” he says. His voice isn’t exactly cold, but she can tell that she’d hurt him. It wasn’t her intention, but that’s what had happened. She seemed to be doing a lot of that these days, hurting people without meaning to.

“Steve, I’m sorry,” Leanna sighs.

“I don’t get it,” he says, looking over at her intently, “I check in on how you’re doing…I just want to make sure that you’re okay, and that makes you angry.”

Leanna’s eyes water.

“I never should have made you leave the facility. Is that what this is about? I know you liked it there. I just thought maybe it would be good for you to spend time somewhere that you wouldn’t be reminded of…” he trails off, remembering all those hard nights in the hospital wing.

“Yes, I love it there. I miss my room. I miss being able to just go into the kitchen and hang out with Nat. So, yeah, Steve, I miss it…” She stops herself from bringing up the subject further, wondering if maybe they’re both just tired and that now isn’t the time to get into it.

“Steve, I didn’t mean to be mean or anything. But will you just come lay down with me? That couch is too small for you—”

“Maybe in a bit, honey. You said you saw someone wandering our street. Maybe they were looking for an opportunity to break in somewhere.”

Leanna realizes that she’s not going to get him to move, so she turns around and starts back to his room, her meds beginning to take greater effect. Leanna can’t find the power to turn off the lamp in the bedroom. She wishes that Steve was at least beside her. She can’t help feeling safer when he’s physically at her side. She fights sleep for only a while before she drifts off. She dreams unsettling dreams about Bucky standing at the elevator. He never hurts her, but it’s eerie in a way that causes her to awaken with sweat on her brow at 5AM. The sensation of something heavy across her waist causes her to panic for only a second before she realizes that it’s only Steve’s arm. He’s breathing evenly behind her, sound asleep. She calms down, staring at the digital clock, listening to the heat push its way through the furnace relentlessly.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really am pissed off with myself. I need to dedicate a good couple of days to writing my thesis. In the past 19 days, I have written about 111 pages with this and about 2 for my thesis. I have so many deadlines coming up. I'm pretty stressed out. Seems like that's when I get the most inspiration for fanfic...

As Steve makes them scrambled eggs on Christmas morning, Leanna sips her tea quietly, wondering whether to tell him that Bucky was in the building last night. Something tells her that it would probably not have surprised him if she said he was. She had snuck out of bed to pee after she woke up early that morning and thumbed through Steve’s text messages to find that Bucky had been asking about seeing her. He had known about the Christmas Eve party, but he hadn’t come. She didn’t read everything that was said between the two, but she knew that Steve just didn’t want her to see Bucky. He’d told Bucky that he should just focus on recovering, that they would have a chance to talk about Leanna after the holidays. He’d told Bucky that she was out of state, that much she read, before Steve stirred in his sleep and started to reach for her in the dark. Leanna had been stealthy about it, placing his phone back where it was and closing the window a bit, whispering to Steve that it was getting chilly, before slipping under the covers beside him again.

Sometimes she feels crappy about reading his texts, but she had learned that he was lying to Bucky about where she was, how she was, that they were spending time together at all. She wonders for a moment, as Steve smiles at her and pushes a plate of pancakes in front of her, if he’s still worried that Bucky might hurt her. Or that she might hurt him. After running into Bucky last night, Leanna isn’t so sure he’s still a threat. He had essentially run away from her. But if he hadn’t seen Steve coming, she doesn’t know if he would have actually stayed and tried to talk to her. It seemed like he wanted to, but he was just so surprised to see her there because Steve had told him she wasn’t even around.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Steve breathes, sitting at the table on the other side of her, “I know I can be…overprotective. But it’s hard for me not to be with the people I care about.” He breaks a piece of sausage with his fork, staring into his plate with a hard look on his face.

“I guess I’ve just been through so much with losing Bucky, getting him back, losing you, getting you back…I don’t want to lose anyone ever again. And that makes me, well, overprotective. So…I love you, and I’m sorry.”

“I love you, too, Steve,” Leanna says, meaning it.

“I just wish that you would talk to me when something is wrong. You’re not always that open with me.”

She looks the Captain in the eyes a moment and they eat in silence for a while.

“I know that I shouldn’t expect you to tell me _every_ single thing, but I know that something was bothering you last night, shortly before the party was over. Was it something I did?”

“No. It wasn’t anything you did.”

Steve’s expression is discontent for a few seconds. She keeps withholding things. He can tell.

“I know the heat’s been on the fritz lately, but I had every window in this place open. You were out on the balcony with Romanov for quite a while. What did you ladies talk about?”

"You make me feel helpless." Steve's eyebrows raise.

"Sometimes, Steve. Like...you...sometimes, and I don't think you realize that you do this, you are _very_ controlling. I felt that the most when you locked me in your room...I thought, how could he corner me like this? I know what I did was wrong and I caused trouble, but that you locked me away for hours...I hadn't felt so helpless as I had when I was raped. Because there was _nothing_ I could do about it except wait for you to open the door." At this news, Steve is taken aback, and clearly devastated. But suddenly it makes sense to him and he nods.

"I never…I never even thought that I've been making you feel this way. I'm sorry, Leanna. I really am. I hope you know that I've never wanted to hurt you or make you feel helpless. I never meant to try to control you...I thought I was doing what was best for you."

And there it was out in the open, the real reason the Captain couldn't fuck her without causing distress. She needed to feel that _she_ was in control. All this time, Steve had thought that if he just kept her occupied, kept her away from Bucky, she wouldn't ever think about it, be hurt by any of it.

"And you never asked me what _I want_ , Steve. You just assumed you knew what was good for me."

"I'm sorry." He drops his fork, “I guess I’m used to being in charge, and I feel like I always have to control things. I shouldn’t have let that part of me take over our relationship…I thought I was protecting you...shielding you from pain and fear."

"I know it comes from a good place, Steve, but you have to stop trying to control my life and everything about it. Like how I didn't want to leave the facility. I realize now that maybe that was a step in the right direction. But at the time, it felt like control. Control, control, control, Steve." 

He sighs. The word is like a stab in the chest every time he hears it.

"I'm truly sorry," he says, sinking where he sits.

“I don’t want to fight, Steve. I really don’t,” Leanna explains, “For the love of god, it’s Christmas."

“We’re not fighting. We’re just talking. It’s okay.”

They eat in silence a little bit longer. Steve finishes his coffee and stares out at the balcony.

“You said you saw someone walking up and down the street…”

She stops chewing for a handful of seconds. Steve looks at her again.

“Was it Bucky?”

She nearly chokes. Steve sighs, shaking his head.

“I told him not to come here. I didn’t think he even knew about the party, really. But I’m sure he realized that no one was around. He probably just wanted to talk. I didn’t tell him you’re here,” Steve explains, “You probably don’t want to hear this, but he’s…he’s really messed up about what he did to you. He’s been having a really hard time. He mentioned that he wanted to see you. To apologize. But…I didn’t tell you because after what you did, I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea.”

Leanna wipes her mouth.

“But that’s you trying to _control_ everything again, Steve,” she explains. He stands to bring his plate to the sink, then leans against it with both hands there, gripping.

“Did you run into him outside or something? He’s not supposed to leave the facility. He’s still in therapy,” Steve explains, not bothering to turn around.

“Does it matter?”

He turns around now to face her.

“ _Yes_ , it matters, Le. Because believe it or not, I’m trying to help both of you. What he did to you was traumatic, in ways that I can’t even understand. I didn’t want you to just run into each other unannounced. I can’t imagine what that’s like. For either of you.”

“Yes, I saw him. And he saw me, and he left. That’s all.”

Steve relaxes a little bit. He was too smart. She didn’t have to say much for him to piece it all together.

“He didn’t say anything to you?”

Leanna stands and walks out of the kitchen, leaving one pancake unfinished. Steve follows her to the door, where she grabs her coat, shoving her feet inside her shoes.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“Leanna,” he begs, grabbing her arm. She turns around to look him in the eyes.

“Steve, I really need to be alone for a minute,” she says as calmly as possible. He holds onto her arm for a few more seconds before letting it go. It surprises Leanna that he actually allows her to walk out of the door. She swears that he’s about to follow her, but when she finds herself outside and it doesn’t happen, she’s relieved. She doesn’t run into Bucky again. She wonders if Steve only let her go for this walk because it’s daylight. On her way back to the apartment, she finds that Steve has texted to ask her if she’d like to go back to the facility, that there’s also a Christmas party happening later that night. Leanna decides that she’ll answer in person. Steve is still sitting at the kitchen table when she walks back in. His phone is in front of him, and she knows he’d been staring at it, waiting anxiously for her to answer his text.

He stands up and she rushes over to him and hugs him tightly. This seems to surprise him and he’s slow to wrap his arms around her.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

Leanna presses her face into the warmth of his chest, nodding.

“I’m sorry…” he breathes.

“I forgive you, Steve.”

He wonders whether she’ll be able to forgive Bucky. And as he thinks about it harder, he starts to wonder if _he_ can forgive him either. When he was alone in the kitchen while Leanna was out, he started to realize that _Bucky_ is the reason that things are so difficult between himself and Leanna. _Bucky_ had been the source of all her problems. The Captain hadn’t quite been able to pinpoint his anger until this moment. He’d known that Bucky wasn’t Bucky when he hurt Leanna. But the rage is still present. He thinks about Bucky ravishing her and it makes him angry.

“He’s going to be there,” Steve states. Leanna keeps her arms around him.

“I don’t want to hide forever,” she explains, looking up at him, “It’s not a way to live.”

Steve begins to come to terms with the fact that Leanna is right.


	16. Chapter 16

Steve keeps a grip on Leanna’s waist as she finishes her drink. She has yet to see Bucky, but can tell that Steve is looking for him. He gazes around the room and she finally begins to pry his arm off her.

“ _Steve_ ,” she sighs. She had begun to sweat where his arm clutches her.

“Can I get some air?” Leanna laughs.

“What…?”

He finally releases her after she had put her drink on the bar to use both hands now. She sighs and straightens out her dress.

“You were beginning to crush me,” she says. He looks at her apologetically.

“It’s okay,” she says before he has the chance to apologize.

“I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” She glances behind her once to find Steve looking after her, and she half believes he will follow her, but luckily he stays put at the bar. By the time Leanna turns the corner, she has to make a run for it as not to wet herself. Steve sighs, pulling his collar uneasily. He pulls his phone out of his back pocket to text Bucky and ask where he is. The party has been going on for at least two hours and Bucky has made a point not to show up. But as Steve tucks his phone back into his pocket and looks around the busy room, he spots Bucky at the top of the stairs, looking over the rail in the same direction where Leanna had just gone. Steve beelines for him and meets Bucky halfway up the stairs. It looked to Steve like he was going to go down that same hallway and he wanted to intercept him. Unless Bucky also had to pee, he had no business going that way.

“Steve,” Bucky breathes, smiling without teeth, but Steve detects the faintest hint of disappointment in Bucky’s voice. Bucky clears his throat.

“I—uh—I’m sorry, I wasn’t going to come yesterday, and then I ran into Leanna—I thought you said she wasn’t in town. It was an accident—”

“Buck, don’t worry about it,” Steve reassures him.

“I…I didn’t realize you were seeing her. She’s staying with you at your old apartment? I thought she had a room here.” Bucky swallows hard, looking away down the stairs at the tops of people’s heads for a few seconds.

“She does. We just moved out for a while. She needed a change of scenery for a little bit, but we’re moving back in.” Steve scans Bucky’s expression repeatedly, wanting to know exactly what’s in his best friend’s head.

“I’m sorry. I know I’ve been ignoring your texts all day. I just wasn’t expecting to see her. And it caught me off guard…how is she?” Bucky finally looks in Steve’s eyes.

“She’s been better. She wants to come back here, so I think she’s doing okay.”

Bucky nods, looking away again.

“Steve…is this gonna be awkward now? I mean…’cause, if it’s gonna be, I’ll leave. I’ll find somewhere else to—”

“Buck—no,” Steve pleads, leading him up the stairs and farther away from everyone. Bucky sighs, looking like he’s about to cry.

“I can’t forgive myself…I remember a lot of what I did. I hurt her, Steve.”

“Look…the way Nat describes things, and some of the things Le explained to me…you weren’t yourself. You weren’t in control…and if you’d disobeyed, they would have wasted you both. I get that now…doesn’t make what happened okay, but it was _not your fault_.”

Bucky turns away from Steve, wiping his eyes hastily. He had been on a handful of missions with Leanna on the team. She was always such a loving, gentle, amazing woman. Remembering forcing himself on her shatters Bucky’s very being.

“I didn’t want her to see me. That’s why I’ve been circling away from you two,” Bucky explains. So, he had been around, just invisible.

“I don’t want to traumatize her all over again,” he explains, “Steve…I don’t know if I can go on much longer,” Bucky confesses. Steve stands in front of him, preventing him from trying to leave.

“Don’t say that. Please…it’s gonna be okay, Buck—”

“I—"

“James?”

Bucky’s eyes open wide and Steve’s head whips in the direction of Leanna’s voice. He had been so focused on Bucky that he didn’t even notice her coming towards them. Bucky wipes his eyes hastily before turning around to face her.

“I thought that was you that I saw last night, but I wasn’t entirely sure,” Leanna states, spilling her drink somewhat. She teeters on the stairs slightly and Bucky instinctively reaches out to steady her. She clutches his flesh arm with both hands, dropping her glass, and it shatters on the stairs by her feet. It is very clear to Steve and to Bucky that Leanna is a little bit drunk now. She stares at the space where her glass has fallen before looking at Bucky’s hand on her waist. He releases her and Steve gives her his arm for balance.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Leanna breathes, lamenting the gin punch she managed to spill.

“Sweetie, you need to slow down,” Steve explains, wondering how he didn’t manage to realize how drunk she was getting a few minutes prior.

“I thought I saw Bucky up here, but I wasn’t sure,” she explains, looking at him.

“Doll, you should really have some water,” Bucky says with a small grin. Steve appears to be trying to gauge whether Bucky having touched her caused her some sort of distress, but she just looks confused.

“Nat said there wasn’t much alcohol in that, but it was strong,” Leanna breathes.

“I think we’d better call it a night for you,” Steve explains, “Sorry, Buck. I think she’s going to need some help—”

“It’s nothing,” Bucky explains, shaking his head, “Take care of her before she pukes.”

Steve leads her in the other direction. It almost felt like she was happy to see him, Bucky thought. He watches her nearly trip going down the stairs, Steve trying to help her all the way down. He hadn’t forgotten how beautiful she was. Seeing her put Bucky’s stomach in knots, and it hurt knowing what he’d done to her. It also hurt to see her walking away with his best friend. But Bucky thought that perhaps this was better for her. His mind simply couldn’t be trusted. What if he were to snap again? He would never forgive himself.

“Was that okay?” Steve asks, once they’re in the hall where it’s less noisy, “How did you feel seeing him?”

“I…I don’t know. He looks…so sad. It kind of makes me feel sad,” Leanna explains, the alcohol giving her liquid honesty, “I think he was hiding from us, Steve. I thought I saw him a few times,” Leanna explains. Steve leads her to her room and they step inside. He hands her a bottled water he had pulled from the bar on their way to her room. Leanna sits on her bed. She drinks.

“Will you just sit with me, Steve?” she asks.

“Of course,” he explains, pulling the chair from her desk and sitting in front of her. Leanna thinks it odd that he hadn’t sat beside her on the bed.

“Did you feel comfortable seeing him?” Steve asks. Leanna can tell that Steve is asking about Bucky having touched her. He was only trying to keep her from falling down the stairs and smashing her head open like a pumpkin. Her eyes water and Steve’s brows furrow in concern.

“Hey, I’m here,” he says. Leanna cries anyway.

“He looked _so_ …sorry…and miserable,” Leanna explains. It surprises Steve to see her crying about Bucky’s emotions.

“He doesn’t have to say it. I can feel how sorry he is,” she whispers.

Steve is rubbing her bare knees comfortingly.

“He said he would leave, if you weren’t comfortable with him being here,” Steve explains gently.

Leanna stares into space before shaking her head.

“How can I ask him to do that?” she says, massaging her temples.

“Where would he even go, Steve?”

“I don’t know…my old apartment.”

“I’m not going to make him do that…I’m not going to make anyone do anything,” Leanna breathes, shaking her head, “I know how _that_ feels and it doesn’t feel good.”

“Well, sweetie, if you’re not comfortable here—”

“I _am_. That’s just it, Steve…I feel perfectly normal here.”

The Captain regrets having made her leave in the first place.

“This is familiar,” she explains, looking around her room a moment. Steve’s hands rubbing her knees have traveled a little bit further up, and Steve pulls his hands away, sighing and resting them on the bed on either side of her. Leanna can’t help but stare at the veins running through them, the restraint that seems to be there in the way that he clutches her bed, the knuckles blanching slightly. She kisses Steve’s forehead a lingering moment, inhaling the scent of his hair, the mild cologne he had sprayed on before they left his overheated apartment. Steve inhales deeply. Leanna kisses his cheek, then his chin, and cautiously, his mouth.

“You’re drunk, honey,” he says quietly, breaking the kiss. Leanna pulls Steve towards herself, hooking her legs around him, dragging him onto the bed with her. She’s clutching his handsome face in her hands.

“I _want_ this,” she says, “I’m not drunk. I just know.”

Steve reads her gaze for a handful of seconds longer before kissing her back. The pair are reduced to a heated pile of desperation as Leanna opens her mouth, letting Steve’s tongue explore it like it never has before. He’s a good kisser for a man who has hardly any experience in the bedroom. Leanna moans, digging into Steve’s muscular back as he suckles her neck and collar bones, unzipping her dress at the back. She starts to unbuckle his belt and unzip his pants. She sticks her hand down his boxers curiously and finds that he’s already hard. He moans as she massages up and down his shaft, making him impossibly even harder. He pauses in kissing all over her face to look in her eyes again.

“Are you sure?” he asks her, all the love and patience palpable. Leanna traces his wheat gold eyebrow with her thumb and nods. After helping her out of her dress, Steve pulls her underwear down slowly, as if he isn’t sure he wants to go through with this. He notices from the darkened crotch area of the fabric that she had gotten wet, her scent making him eager. He seems to be waiting for her to tell him to stop, but she never does. And he lays her there gently, her head cushioned in his palms. Leanna reaches between them and guides his throbbing cock inside of her. She gasps as he bottoms out, clutching his shoulders, her eyes squeezing tightly shut.

“Does it hurt?” he asks. Leanna gasps again. He had hardly moved his hips.

“Is this hurting you? Do you want me to stop?” Steve asks, desperately. Her cunt tightens hard around him a moment, causing him to shudder. He finds himself not wanting to have to pull out, but is ready to. A breath catches in Leanna’s throat and she groans.

“Annie?”

She opens her eyes and looks up at him, breathing. Leanna grips him around the middle, guiding him closer to her. Steve takes it to mean that she doesn’t want him to stop. She moans when he waves his hips carefully. Steve is girthy, a lot like she remembers Bucky being, but this time it only hurts a little bit, until his length is slick with her wetness. And Steve is tantalizingly gentle with her, keeping tabs on her expressions.

“Harder, Steve,” Leanna breathes, lifting her head slightly, as if to be sure he hears her. He thrusts only a little bit rougher, moaning as Leanna throws her head back, her voice music to his ears. He had been wanting to do this for ages, but didn’t want to rush things. He had let Leanna come to him on her own terms. After their discussion earlier that day, he realized that she needed to feel in control, and it hadn’t helped to keep taking that away from her. And she’s finally relaxed, her body giving way beneath his.

“H-harder,” Leanna says a lot louder this time. Steve acquiesces.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he breathes. He knew he wouldn’t last very long the first time they fucked. It had been tantalizing for him to want this so badly, yet not want to make Leanna uncomfortable. He hadn’t even jacked off for weeks, all the built-up desire ready to explode from his body. He pulls out abruptly, making a mess of Leanna’s abdomen. She gasps, wondering why he had stopped. She’d felt like she was getting very close and it frustrated her to suddenly be empty. She gazes down and finds him cumming thick, searing, white ropes across her stomach. He’s coming an abnormal amount, and it reminds her of Bucky momentarily, and she blinks, catching a glimpse of that shiny arm before blinking again and finding Steve’s reddened shoulder in her grasp. Maybe she was still a little bit drunk, but she thanked the alcohol for making it possible to finally have Steve inside of her without having a full-on panic attack.

“I’m sorry,” Steve breathes, his chest heaving, “I just—I’ve been waiting so long, I couldn’t last.”

She pushes a hand through his hair comfortingly, getting lost in his light blue gaze, the lust gradually receding from them and being replaced with his ever-permanent tacit apology.


	17. Chapter 17

“That was crappy of me. I wanted to bring you to orgasm but I—”

“Steve, it’s okay,” Leanna promises for the third time, blushing nonetheless. He looks at her apologetically, running his hand up and down her naked side.

“I’ve been waiting so long for that,” he explains again, drinking in her flesh with satisfied eyes.

“Was it everything you thought it would be?”

“Much more.”

He kisses her forehead.

“I just hope it was comfortable for you. You know that I—”

“It was perfect, Steve,” Leanna interrupts him, stretching. He sighs, holding her. She manages to fall asleep, and he surmises that it’s partially due to what she’d had to drink. Steve carefully drapes the cover over her before pulling his boxers and jeans back on. He throws the shirt over his head before starting out of Leanna’s room. He had still wanted to talk to Bucky, make sure he was doing alright. He seemed so fragile. He finds him at a corner at the bar drinking, but before Bucky even notices Steve coming towards him, the Captain hones in on his expression. Bucky appears to be frustrated, and Steve wonders if perhaps it’s due to the fact that he more than likely can’t feel the effects of what he’s drinking. Bucky orders another shot and a beer and starts on both immediately.

“Don’t you think you should slow down?” Steve asks, taking the empty seat beside him. Bucky looks surprised to see Steve there.

“Where’s Leanna? You should be watching her. She’s drunk,” Bucky explains. Steve is surprised by the complete concern Bucky exhibits over her. It’s clear that he must care about her very much. Steve pauses, trying to imagine how he would feel if he had ever hurt Leanna the way that Bucky had. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself.

“I just mean…take your time. You’re still in the healing process.”

“Not physically,” Bucky explains, shrugging before drinking half of his beer.

“Where’s your arm?” Steve asks. Bucky sighs.

“They took it off after my last freak out…and I just didn’t feel good about putting it back on,” Bucky explains. Steve leans in somewhat closer to Bucky, so that only he can hear.

“You can’t keep blaming yourself forever.”

Bucky inhales, and catches a whiff of Leanna’s perfume on Steve. He had smelled it when he grabbed her to keep her from falling down the stairs roughly an hour prior. Smelling it on Steve makes Bucky uncomfortable, and he hopes that Steve had merely maybe held Leanna’s hair back while she vomited. He begins to picture Steve touching her inappropriately and grinds his teeth for a second behind a closed mouth.

“She’s your goddamn girlfriend, Steve. How are you not beating the shit out of me right now?” Bucky asks, cocking his head to the side. Steve pulls the near empty beer out of Bucky’s hand. Bucky sighs and pushes his hand through his hair.

“Because I know that was never you, Buck. I need you back. You’re my best friend. Just tell me what I can do to help.”

Bucky looks away momentarily, beginning to feel agitated.

“I’m not sure…I don’t expect her to ever forgive me,” he mutters. Steve places the beer on the counter and Bucky looks at it for a handful of seconds, deciding it’s futile to bother trying to poison himself. His metabolism would fight it before he could truly feel the effects. It was Leanna’s forgiveness that Bucky wanted. Steve realizes that he has no way of giving that to him and his heart sinks a bit.

“I don’t think she’s angry with you,” Steve begins, “If anything, she’s been really angry with _me_.”

Bucky cocks a brow with interest.

“She said that I can be…controlling. And I never noticed that until we fought about it earlier. After she went down to the lower level to…” Steve glances at Bucky out of the corner of his eye, “Do you remember that? She went down there to attack you.”

“Barely.”

“Well, anyway, I fired her after that. She was being crazy, unpredictable. What else could I have done? I was trying to protect both of you. She got really mad at me for that. But I don’t regret doing it, ‘cause you’re alive. She’s alive.”

To Steve’s delight, Bucky laughs a little bit.

“You know, I’ve only done a handful of missions where she came with, but she’s a trooper. She loves the field more than anything. I can’t blame her for being pissed at you.”

Steve sighs, shrinking regretfully a moment. Bucky’s smile fades. He pats Steve on the shoulder, turning to use his flesh hand to do it.

“Look, Steve, I know you don’t have nearly as much experience with women as I do, but you gotta sometimes bend to their will if you wanna make ‘em happy. You should un-fire her. She’s gonna stay mad at you until you do.”

“That’s the thing. I never fully went through with the process. The only other person who even knows I fired Leanna is Natasha. I didn’t have the heart to go down to HR and finish the job,” Steve explains.

“Well, then you’re safe!”

“I don’t want Le to know any of this until she’s healthy again, mentally. I don’t want her to focus on going into the field so much. She’s suffered a lot of trauma—” Steve stops speaking abruptly, picking up on Bucky’s gradually saddening face as he stares into space. Bucky knows that a lot of the trauma is his own doing.

“She’s stronger than I sometimes give her credit for, Buck. She’s pulled through this very well with therapy. I’ve had to learn to give her space, let her feel in control. I really take a lot of the blame for slowing her progress.”

Bucky glances at Steve and smiles weakly.

“Women are still a mystery to me sometimes,” Bucky explains, taking a sip of water now.

“You’re telling me.”

Leanna awakens with a headache in her bed. She turns around to find Steve sleeping like a brick not far away from her. She wonders for a moment if what she thought happened last night actually happened. The mild soreness inside her reminds her that it wasn’t just a dream and she grins at Steve, reaching out to lightly touch his shoulder. He seems at peace for once, not eager to stop her from running away somewhere or do something she might regret later. It was awkward seeing Bucky again, after he’d run away from her without saying anything. He was sweeter than she remembers and Leanna finds herself feeling badly for him. Sometimes, the way he looked at her, seemed like he really saw her. The way that men tend to see you when they’re falling in love. The way that Steve looks at her. In a way, she’s almost certain that Bucky feels that for her. So, it must have hurt him even worse knowing what he’d done. The way that Steve explained it, Bucky seemed to be having a hard time recuperating emotionally. Leanna had that, too. It wasn’t hard to imagine why.

And suddenly what Steve said about not being able to understand what it was like for either her or Bucky made a lot of sense. She stares at Steve a while, her eyes watering. He loved them both. He just thought he was doing the right thing. Her latent anger about him firing her from the team dissipates at long last, as she understands that Steve only loves her. His eyes pop open and he gazes up at her automatically.

“Le?” Steve wipes his eyes, groggy a moment, before sitting up to meet her. He wraps his arms around her, asking her what’s wrong. His hands are _so_ warm, like coals on her naked flesh. Nice coals.

“Another nightmare?” he asks. She lies, nodding. He kisses her forehead gingerly.

“I think we left your meds on my nightstand. I shoulda remembered them. I’m sorry.”

His lips press to her forehead again for a long moment, and Leanna leans into him.

“I love you, Steve.”

“I love you, too…are you okay?”

Leanna nods. She wonders whether Steve had fallen asleep there with her. She was out long enough that she wouldn’t have noticed had he left. He kisses her temple. The closeness is exactly what she needed in that moment. It felt as if he was holding her together, and she was thankful for that.

“Are you sure it was okay that we made love last night? You seemed a little uncomfortable at first,” Steve explains, peeling Leanna off him enough to meet her eyes. Her skin boils shyly for a moment. Steve spoke so sweetly, caringly. If she hadn’t known him at all, if he was a perfect stranger to her, she would have thought he looked very rough and tough, but the muscles were just an exterior behind which resided a man who was really the softest person ever. More often than not, everything he did with her was gentle. He didn’t even kiss too hard. It was a stark contrast to what she had experienced with Bucky. And for a moment, she feels herself becoming aroused, shaking her head to will the bad thoughts away. Steve frowns somewhat, looking regretful.

“I wish you had told me, honey. I didn’t think it was a good idea because you weren’t thinking clearly—”

“N-no. _That_ was fine, Steve. I liked it. I was just thinking about the nightmare I had,” Leanna sighs, rubbing her temples. Steve’s warm hand passing down her back repeatedly causes further arousal. She sighs pleasantly, taking a deep breath.

“If you want me to, I’ll drive by my apartment today and pick up your medicine. You tend to forget to take it at night.” As Leanna gazes into his endlessly serene eyes, she realizes that the Captain would do anything for her. She begins to melt in a way she hadn’t been able to feel in some time. She wonders why all these feelings are rushing to her now. Had it been because he finally fucked her? Had it been because she’d run into Bucky and realized that he no longer had any control over her? She figures it’s a combination of these things. She nods. Steve kisses her cheek. The overwhelming urge to pee causes Leanna to excuse herself. She fumbles through her drawers for some clothes to throw on before leaving the room. Steve watches her the entire time, looking curious. She doesn’t want him to ask her if she’s okay again, so she rushes out of her room to the bathroom, wishing they had slept in Steve’s room, as it has its own bathroom attached.

Joining Nat and Wanda in the gym makes Leanna feel even more normal. She had missed training together, sparring. It had been a while and she was just a little bit rusty. The women tended to congregate in their own area on the mats and Leanna had looked over a couple of times to find that Steve was watching her, distracted from the punching bag until Sam throws it at him unexpectedly. Steve seemed to have googly eyes since the previous night. It made Leanna’s heart rush constantly, and she’s sure now, as Natasha tackles her to the ground, that it’s not just from the physical activity.

“Are you even _trying_ today?” Natasha asks with a giggle. Leanna is straddling the redhead, finding herself in a jiujitsu shirt choke. Leanna taps out and when she stands up, she catches a glimpse of Bucky over at the punching bags with Clint and Steve. Her heart lurches a moment. He’s not wearing his bionic arm, she notices. He’s talking with Steve, who looks over at her again, Bucky’s gaze following. Leanna turns away, stating that she’s heading to the treadmills for a bit before she showers. Wanda follows suit, asking Leanna whether she’d enjoyed the party last night. Wanda had spent a little bit of time chatting with her while Steve held onto her the whole time, something that Wanda points out, saying they seemed to be very close, a cute couple. Leanna blushes, holding the door open for Wanda. Wanda grins knowingly.

“You two disappeared at some point. Steve came back to the party without you.”

“I, uh…fell asleep.”

Wanda laughs, causing Leanna to blush a lot more.

“Well, Steve is lucky to have such a beautiful girlfriend.”

When Leanna steps out of the shower, she feels refreshed. Finding Steve in her room was the last thing she had expected, but he’s sitting on her bed patiently, washed up and wearing a clean pair of clothes, his hair still damp, and smoothed down to the side the way Leanna likes.

“You scared me,” she says, walking towards her dresser.

“I’m sorry. You disappeared when Bucky came over. I just wasn’t sure where you went.”

She pulls a clean pair of underwear out of her drawer and steps into them. She could have easily texted Steve from her hour and a half run, but she’d zoned out during it.

“I’m okay,” she promises, turning to grin at him a moment.

“I hope things aren’t awkward for you, with Bucky being around now…That’s what I was worried about, coming back here. He just spends a lot of time in the gym. One of the jobs he does now is training agents in hand to hand combat.”

Leanna nods, trying to picture Bucky doing this with one arm. Steve is standing behind her now with his hands in his pockets, looking unsure. Leanna turns around to talk to him.

“You kept…staring over at me. It was getting a little embarrassing. People talk around here, Steve,” Leanna admits shyly.

“Well, I didn’t mean to,” he explains apologetically, “Our relationship doesn’t break any by-laws, Annie,” Steve reminds her. Her heart beats faster as his eyes scan her hips and torso. Steve sighs in a longing manner as Leanna pulls on a form fitting long sleeved shirt.

“You don’t have to _always_ check up on me,” she says.

“You’re right, sweetie. Space is important, too. I just…” he stares at her, smitten. Leanna steps into a pair of pants.

“You’re so beautiful.”

She steps up to him and onto her toes to kiss him. She revels in the sensation of his warm arms encircling her.

“I just thought you left because you were uncomfortable with Bucky being there,” Steve admits again. Leanna shakes her head.

“It’s a big building. He can go wherever he wants.”

She turns away from Steve again and reaches for her hair brush. She catches a glimpse of him gazing at her in the mirror’s reflection. She thinks to ask him what’s wrong before he suggests that he take her out to the city for lunch. Part of Leanna wonders if he still wants to keep her and Bucky apart, as if it somehow helps ease him. The smallest part of her wonders if Steve is afraid that Bucky cares about her too much.

Leanna hadn’t realized how complicated it was going to be dating her boss. That’s technically what Steve is. When he calls her into a meeting one morning, he’s very different in the way that he talks to her. Especially in front of the team. He just seems less personal, more like he’s giving her orders. It was a meeting about a new device that had been developed to use on missions, something that Leanna had the privilege of experimenting with firsthand weeks prior, thanks to agent Claire. Bucky never makes eye contact with Leanna throughout the entire thing, and she stole a couple of glances at his arm. He was wearing it again. She felt invisible to him, and wondered if he meant to make her feel that way. Steve pulls her aside after dismissing the rest of the team.

“I know you were surprised to be invited to this meeting today,” he explains, placing a file folder down in front of her.

“I wanted to be the first to invite you back as an active agent.”

Leanna reaches for the file. Steve places a hand down atop it for several seconds, wanting her undivided attention.

“This is conditional on you following orders and continuing therapy for the next three months. You’re to be paired with someone at all times when in the field. At least for a while, until I can gauge how well you’re doing. You’re not doing any solo ops like before. Is that clear?”

Leanna cocks a brow, holding back a scoff. When she looks in Steve’s eyes and finds his face to be completely serious, she wipes her attitude, glad that she hadn’t verbalized it.

“Is that a yes?” Steve asks. For a moment, she’s bothered by the sternness of his tone.

“Yes,” she says.

“I want you to remember why you’re essentially on probation. I could have picked my next best agent for direct team operations, but I decided to give you another chance. Everyone has said that you show a lot of promise, and I need to know that I’m working with dependable agents.”

“Steve,” Leanna starts somewhat sadly, “I _am_ dependable. I can follow orders,” she states. He releases the file and when Leanna opens it, she’s suddenly disappointed in herself. Steve glances over at the door to the conference room to make sure that it’s secure.

“You still won’t have access to the basement. There are some new rules for that part of the building’s security clearance. You can always re-read the by-laws if you want to stay up-to-date, but basement access now requires _my_ access badge or biometric scan in addition to any agent’s badge who is cleared for interrogations.”

Leanna listens to him, knowing that this new standard is her own fault.

“I had an agent delete any of the footage of you in the interrogation room. That file is all that’s left of the incident. The guard that didn’t die was transferred to the CIA contingent on a non-disclosure agreement. To the best of my knowledge, no one else knows what happened. Just you, myself, agent Hill, and Nat. I don’t want a repeat of anything like that ever again, especially not in this facility…Do you understand?” Leanna’s eyes widen a little bit as Steve pulls away from the table to face her completely, drawing his chair closer to her so that he’s essentially looking down at her. He sure had gone to a ton of trouble to erase the whole incident between her and the winter soldier. She thinks that maybe he did it to protect her image. They both knew that people gossiped.

“Yes, Steve,” Leanna replies genuinely, “I understand.” She’s forced to look up at him, and wonders for a fleeting moment whether he’s trying to be intimidating. The incident report is thorough, complete with a pretty clear security camera photo of Leanna tangoing with the winter soldier.

“I’m discussing this with you as your boss— _not_ your boyfriend.”

“…I get it, St…Captain Rogers.” She doesn’t like the tone the conversation has taken on, but in a way, she’s impressed with Steve’s ability to be objective. When lives were at stake, he could turn off the irrationality of human emotion and be a commander.

“You cross anymore lines…that’s it. If Dr. Banner tells you to do something, you do it. If Thor tells you to do something, you do it. You have to show me that you can follow directions in the field so that we don’t create more danger where there doesn’t need to be any.”

She holds back tears, looking into Steve’s face. She can tell that he means what he’s saying to her.

“Is that understood, agent?” He asks, cocking a brow.

“Yes,” she responds, standing up, simultaneously sliding the file back towards Steve, and making her way for the door. She can hear Steve sigh, as if it had hurt to be so stern to her, but he doesn’t try to get her to come back. When Leanna closes the door behind herself, perhaps a bit harder than she’d meant to, she nearly collides with Bucky on her way down the hall. She gasps, as he steadies her. Had he been eavesdropping? As far as she knows, that conference room is supposed to be soundproof, but she never actually tested this assumption.

“I’m sorry, doll,” Bucky beams. He frowns, and Leanna turns her face, hastily wiping her eye.

“Hey…are you okay?” Bucky asks, his voice flooded with concern. She nods hastily, not having liked the way that Steve was talking to her. She finds it strange that Bucky is suddenly so concerned with her, as he hadn’t even looked at her once throughout the entire meeting.

“Did something—?”

“Sorry—I have to go,” she interrupts, starting around him. At the same time, she hears the conference room door opening, and Steve says something to Bucky, pausing a moment. She can feel his eyes on her as she makes her way to her room.


	18. Chapter 18

To keep herself from crying, Leanna rationalizes that Steve was just trying to be objective, professional, the way he was supposed to be as the captain of the team. She tells herself that had he been sweet and gave her all kinds of special treatment, that would have looked pretty unprofessional to the rest of the team. Perhaps not; it’s not like they didn’t know she and Steve were a couple. But as she continues punching away at the bag, she starts to feel like someone is watching her. And she finally glances around the bag at Steve, all changed into shorts and a wifebeater, ready to train. He grins at Leanna and starts towards her.

“I rarely see you at the punching bags,” he says, standing behind the one she’s hitting and steadying it. Leanna doesn’t say anything to him but starts to hit the bag as hard as she can. Realizing that doing this is only causing her more agitation, she finally stops, out of breath. She places her hands on her knees, leaning over, sweating bullets. She had been at it for quite a while.

“Good job. You were hitting pretty hard. I could feel it,” Steve explains, grinning at Leanna without teeth. She wipes her forehead with the back of her arm.

“Go again,” Steve says encouragingly, bracing himself behind the punching bag. Leanna shakes out her hands. But she sighs with exhaustion.

“I’m—I’m spent on this,” she says, starting away from the mat. When she turns around, Bucky is making his way over to the punching bag. He’s looking at her, but she hears Steve talking behind her.

“Oh, come on, Le…”

She doesn’t bother to turn around and she watches Bucky’s gaze shift to Steve curiously before shifting back to her.

“How about it, Buck?”

Shortly, Leanna hears the sound of the bag hitting something rapidly as she continues to the machines. Deep down, she’s a little bit pissed off with Steve. The way he’d spoken to her almost felt disrespectful, even though he was right about her faults and how they might affect the team. And she knew that he couldn’t have that. It still felt harsher than it needed to be. She turns around to see that Bucky is watching her walk away now, and she can’t hear what he’s saying to Steve, but Steve has his arms crossed and his eyebrows cocked as if he doesn’t like what Bucky is saying. She can’t help feeling as though maybe he is talking about her. Is he telling Steve that he’d caught her in tears in the hallway after that meeting? She wonders how much they say about her. She always found Steve to want to keep their relationship and the details about it private.

It makes her feel uneasy to imagine them talking about her. It’s a weird and awkward situation, ultimately. She goes to the treadmills to take her mind off of it for a while and run while watching game show network.

“What exactly did you _say_ , though?” Bucky asks, turning to look at Steve once Leanna has passed beyond the doors which separate the mats and sparring area from the machines.

“’Cause women can be pretty sensitive sometimes. She was crying when she left the conference room with you. I thought you were gonna take my advice and ­ _un_ -fire her.”

“I did!” Steve explains, irritated, “She was crying?” he asks, looking dejected, his head dropping for a few seconds.

“Yeah. I mean, she seemed upset when I saw her. She walked away fast as she could. And it was _right_ after talking with you,” Bucky explains, pointing a finger at Steve a moment. Steve shakes his head.

“Well…what did you do?”

“I un-fired her, Bucky. But I made damn sure she knew she was on thin ice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Steve sighs with irritation, walking towards the free weights.

“Steve,” Bucky says carefully.

“Look—I just said what I needed to say. Some difficult things that she needed to hear if it’s going to work with her going on missions again. That’s all you need to know.” Steve starts to curl a pair of 150-pound dumbbells while facing the wall.

“Okay,” Bucky says, letting it go. He can tell that Steve doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. He stares at Steve’s back for a handful of seconds before continuing at the punching bag. Leanna is beginning to cool down after running for 40 minutes when the doors open and Bucky walks in. The collar of his t-shirt is already drenched in sweat and she’s kind of caught off guard for a moment as he steps onto a treadmill, leaving one machine between them. He smiles when she looks at him before gluing his eyes to the screen where a football game is on. His friendliness is somewhat refreshing and she can’t help but stare out of the corner of her eyes for a moment at the unreal speed he’s running at. She finishes on her machine, stretching for a moment. She saunters to the spray bottles and paper towels to clean her machine when she realizes that Bucky has slowed down to a walk now.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asks, walking now, “You seemed really upset after the meeting.”

Leanna downs half her water bottle.

“I’m fine,” she says with a nervous smile. She stares at his arm for a second. It’s not the same as the one he’d had before. It’s different.

“Well, I don’t mean to pry, but if Steve was a jerk to you, just let me know and I’ll set him straight.”

She can’t tell if Bucky is joking or not, but she laughs anyway, starting past him.

“I-I’ll see you later,” she says, desperate for a shower now. Bucky watches her walking away, turning up the speed again.

She left the facility before Steve could catch up with her, pairing up with Wanda and Nat to take one of Tony’s fanciest cars for a ride. She ignores Steve’s text asking where she is and turns up the radio a little bit louder. It had been a while since she spent proper time with the women and she wanted to take her mind off of the conversation in the conference room. She almost thought that Bucky was hitting on her when she left the cardio room. She wonders how Steve would have felt to hear Bucky say what he said to her. Leanna sticks her hand out the window, feeling the breeze whip through her fingers. She takes in a deep breath, not caring where Natasha is driving them, knowing she just wants to be free all day.

It’s dinner time when they arrive at the facility again. Leanna had ignored Steve’s phone call an hour before making it back. Natasha groans, scrolling through her phone.

“Are you guys fighting or something?” the redhead asks as they start into the building.

“What?” Leanna asks, pulling a shopping bag around her wrist.

“You and Steve. He’s sent me _five_ texts now asking where we all were all day and when we’re getting back. I _know_ you were ignoring him. Your phone vibrated about a thousand times while we were at the mall.” You could never get anything past Natasha. Leanna blushes brightly a moment, sighing.

“Oh no. Trouble in paradise?” Wanda asks, breathing onto her new pair of sunglasses and wiping the lenses on her shirt.

“Tell him to stop bothering you, Nat,” Leanna explains.

“Well, he’s asking where you are. I think he’s worried. You should answer your boyfriend!”

Leanna sighs. The last text that Steve had sent Leanna was telling her that he wanted to talk. And she had nothing to say. It isn’t until she’s sitting in the common area with something spicy but delicious that Wanda has cooked up for the team that she finds Steve at her side again. He looks somewhat nervous as he sits there next to her with a plate.

“Well, what were you ladies up to?” he asks.

“Girl’s trip,” Natasha beams, sipping a glass of wine with her feet resting on a couch. It surprises Leanna to feel Steve’s lips on her temple for a moment.

“I told her to text you back,” Natasha promises, gazing over at Steve. He laughs lightly, shaking his head.

“Does everyone babysit me now? What is this?” Leanna asks, half-jokingly.

“Well, the rookie always needs an eye kept on them,” Clint explains, winking. Leanna just feels embarrassed now, and everyone making eyes and comments about her and Steve only makes it worse. She starts to choke on the paprika laden dish, getting up to go to the kitchen for a glass of milk. It doesn’t surprise her to hear Steve following her. By the time she reaches for a glass to fill with some vanilla almond milk, he’s leaning against the counter looking at her.

“Are you angry about our talk this morning?” he asks point blank. She knows she’s not getting out of this room without talking to him and she chugs the milk before pouring another glass.

“Bucky said he saw you crying.”

Leanna turns away towards the sink for a moment to hide her expression and rinse out her mouth. When she turns around again, Steve is only two or three feet away from her with his arms crossed.

“Look, I wasn’t trying to upset you—”

“I _know that_ , Steve,” she says impatiently. Steve looks frustrated now.

“I would have said the same thing to anyone else had they done something as out of line as you had,” he explains, blocking her from walking away from him by leaning against the counter where she started.

“Would you have even given someone else another chance?” she asks. Steve looks away for a moment, sighing.

“It’s because we’re together that you even did. Because you knew I wouldn’t be happy if you didn’t let me back on the team.”

“Please don’t make it about that.”

“I don’t like the way you talked to me,” Leanna admits, taking a deep breath before blurting it out. She shrugs, “That’s all.”

“And that’s going to have to change, whether you like it or not. Because the reality is: I give orders, and you and everyone else on the team takes them. I can’t pretend that it’s _okay_ for you to go places you’re not authorized to go, and do things you’re not authorized to do. If it was anybody else, you’re right—I _don’t_ think I would give them a second chance. When I fired them, that’s how it would have stayed.” Leanna twists the glass she’s holding in a tense manner that causes Steve to pick up on her anger.

“And you can’t give me an attitude like you did this morning,” he explains seriously. So, he _had_ picked up on that. Leanna closes her eyes and shakes her head.

“I won’t tolerate it,” Steve continues. It seemed to Leanna as though some sort of a switch flicked in Steve’s mind. He’s being a complete jerk. She tries to remember if he had been this way to her before everything that happened with Bucky, before things got this intense between the two of them. And then she realizes that she had never disobeyed him before. She wonders momentarily if he’s still just really upset that she went after Bucky.

“I didn’t appreciate you ignoring my texts all day. That wasn’t fair,” Steve adds, his tone softening. And she stops staring into space to look up at him now. He’s genuinely upset. She realizes that perhaps he was worried about her, even though it was obvious that she wasn’t alone.

“Instead of _talking_ to me like an adult and telling me that you were upset with my tone, you ran off and pretended I don’t exist. That really hurt my feelings, Leanna.”

Suddenly she doesn’t feel so good about herself and she gazes up at the Captain apologetically. She sighs. Before she can apologize, Sam and Clint are walking in, laughing about something.

“Ice cream, Cap?” Sam asks, going into the freezer right next to them. Leanna had turned around to rinse out her glass when she heard them coming in, not wanting it to look like she and Steve were having a tense moment.

“Uh, sure. I can afford the calories.”

“Shut the hell up about calories,” Sam says jokingly. The men start conversing and Leanna washes her glass at the sink before turning around again with a much more jovial expression on her face. Steve watches her leave the kitchen, and she knows that their conversation will carry on before she retires for the night. She doesn’t rejoin the ladies in the common area again, and realizes for the first time that Bucky wasn’t even there. She’s just crying, feeling like a shitty person as she makes her way to her room. She hadn’t meant to hurt Steve’s feelings. She didn’t think ignoring him would have hurt him as much as it appeared to. It’s like clockwork that Bucky happens to be coming towards her. She doesn’t make it past him without him engaging.

“Hey,” he says comfortingly, placing his flesh hand on her shoulder, “What’s wrong, doll?” he asks carefully. Bucky’s eyes are so soft and concerned. He begins to furrow his dark brows.

“What did Steve do?” he asks, not wasting any time at it. Leanna shakes her head fervently.

“Nothing. He didn’t do anything,” she explains, shrugging.

“I just…need to go to bed,” she explains.

“Are you sure?” Bucky asks. He removes his hand from her shoulder now, looking down at her suspiciously, “Seemed like something was wrong after he got done talking to you this morning.”

Leanna shakes her head.

“It’s not…I’m fine,” she says, unable to make eye contact anymore. It’s still kind of awkward being this close to Bucky, him actually talking to her.

“Well…if I were so lucky as Steve to be with you, I wouldn’t wanna do anything to make you cry like this.”

Leanna’s heart jumps. She looks up at Bucky quickly. She wonder’s whether he can hear himself speak. She rushes around him and to her room, closing the door. She locks it, something that she never does.

When she doesn’t come into Steve’s room not much later, he knocks at her door. She doesn’t say anything to him as he walks in wearing his blue flannel pajama pants. She had been sleeping in his quarters at night. Steve didn’t think that tonight would be any different. He sighs.

“We really shouldn’t go to bed upset with each other, Le. I don’t like that.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings today. I was just a little bit pissed off with that file and…” she sits on the bed, pulling up her sleeves nervously, “I guess I just was angry. I’m sorry.”

Steve sits beside her, staring at the wall.

“Steve?”

“I wonder if it’s going to work if I have to be your boss at the same time,” he says.

“What?” Leanna asks. He swallows hard.

“What are you saying, Steve?” she asks desperately. He shakes his head.

“Nothing...”

He wraps his arms around her. Leanna can’t help wondering what he meant.

“I just don’t want anything to happen to you. That’s why I was so stern about you getting back on the team.”

Deep down, Leanna can understand Steve’s concerns, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’d felt he was almost condescending towards her that morning. She pulls away from him enough to meet his gaze.

“What did you mean that you wondered if it’s going to work?” She asks, her eyes tearing up.

“I’m not sure, Annie. I guess I’m worried about how I’ll feel when we’re on missions. I’m going to be worried about you, about something happening.”

“But everyone will be there, Steve. I won’t be alone. And like you said, I’ll be partnered with someone at all times.”

Steve sighs, nodding.

“Steve—I’ll _show_ you that I’m capable. I _am_. You just have to give me a chance.”

He looks at her a long moment before kissing her. And then he’s quiet. Leanna kisses him back. Gradually, they end up kissing passionately. Steve rolls over so that she’s on top of him and she straddles him, tugging at his shirt. His skin is warm and comforting. They had been having sex every night since the Christmas party, and neither really wanted to break that streak. Leanna isn’t sure she would have really been able to let Steve sleep all alone. The sex was good and something that she looked forward to every night. It had helped her to sleep as well. The second time, she’d had an orgasm, like Steve wanted to give her, and she couldn’t get enough of him, his stamina, his heavy petting.

Steve bucking his hips up rapidly from beneath Leanna causes her to gasp and moan, his arms wrapping securely around her, a hand travelling to grab her ass firmly. He let her ride him, grind on him until she came, at which point he would pull her hips down on himself hard, reveling in the sensation of her squeezing him internally, his moaning music to her ears. Her legs tremble and she bares down on his brawny shoulders, her nails seeping into his skin. He got on top of her and continued thrusting until he had to pull out, catching his cum in a hand and hastily grabbing a few tissues off of Leanna’s nightstand. She’s beginning to run out of tissues due to this. She’s lying on her back, body on another plane, feeling the afterglow when Steve dips his head to kiss her naked body appreciatively, leaving a hickey here and there, places they were less likely to be noticed.

Once catching his breath, Steve starts talking about all the places they should visit someday, like he had that night he drove her into the city for dinner. Leanna smiles, cupping his cheek a moment. She presses her forehead to his warm chest and eventually falls asleep, forgetting all of the uneasiness of the day.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm losing steam for this story. Idk why. I started off not being able to stop writing. I am pretty sure that I have some variation of the flu, even though I got a flu shot in the fall. I'm sick af. And I'm trying to finish deadlines for school. Sigh, I hate my life most of the time. I think that's why I've always loved writing stories and just getting lost in fantasies and daydreams...

The first mission Leanna finds herself on, she simply cannot believe she’d even set foot on the quinjet. It has been a long time, and all she feels is excitement. This time, they were going to deal with an alien invasion in Boston. Leanna had thought this type of thing would never happen again, but after Thanos, even though things managed to be fixed, there continued to be more and more life forms in existence out there, which led to the occasional invasion. Steve steals glances at her between talking to Sam, who’s piloting. But he keeps his distance from her until they land. Before anyone has a chance to step off of the jet, Steve pairs Leanna with Thor. He pairs everyone up, and she wonders whether he had intentionally kept her from the women because of how close they were as friends.

She’s not too surprised by his decision, however, seeing as Thor’s powers are as intense as it gets. He flies her off to a vantage point atop a building where he can simply throw thunderbolts down on the bad guys, leaving Leanna at a loss for what she’s supposed to be doing. She interrupts his blasting by tapping him on the back.

“What should I be doing?” she asks, “I can’t exactly reach anything from up here.”

“Oh—erm…just hang tight a moment. I’ll take you back down on the ground in a minute,” he grins, scratching the back of his head a moment and giving her a blue-eyed wink. Leanna starts wondering if this was Steve’s plan all along, to keep her out of the action. She realizes that Thor is probably going to report back to Steve with how well she managed, so she sighs and decides not to try and open the roof access door not far behind Thor’s back. She becomes agitated that she’s missing everything as an alien tackles Thor on some sort of a hover bike, and he blasts off the roof for a handful of seconds, the foreign invader falling extra crispy barbecue style out of the sky. Leanna manages to shoot another one as it flies by, and when it turns around to target her, she shoots at it, about wasting her bullets, before Thor throws Stormbreaker square through it. Leanna sighs.

“I _had_ that one,” she states, cocking an eyebrow at Thor.

“Sorry,” he giggles, taking off again so hard that it leaves Leanna in a breeze that nearly causes her legs to give way.

“What’s the deal down there?” she asks on the comms.

“Where are you, Leanna?” Steve’s voice comes through loud and clear before she hears him grunt in the process of kicking some ass.

“I’m on a rooftop, watching all you guys kick alien butt,” she says, looking over the edge somewhat.

“Thor—get her on the ground, but stay together,” Steve commands. Before Leanna can even brace herself, Thor is clutching her in his massive arm and flying through the breeze. She screams once before he lands and gingerly places her on her feet. For a moment, she feels as if she’s about to throw up, but Thor is already being tackled before he can ask her if she’s okay. She starts shooting, managing to hit her target. She catches sight of Steve and jumps up on top of a car to get a bit of a closer view of the few invaders still left flying through the air. Before she can shoot another one, there is lightning so bright that she can hardly see. And when she opens her eyes again, they’re gone. It’s almost as if Thor is trying to outdo her.

“I _had_ those guys!” she calls.

“Their exterior is rather tough—bullets aren’t going to do it,” he explains, blasting off again, but Leanna glances to her left and finds Natasha taking one out with one of her guns. She rolls her eyes. By the time they’re done fighting, Leanna has hardly killed more than a handful of invaders on her own. Steve is chatting with Thor on the jet and she gets the feeling that perhaps Steve had conversed with the god beforehand and essentially asked him to babysit her. She can’t exactly play with her phone to distract herself, so she grabs a book she had brought with her, when Steve finally approaches her in the back of the jet.

“How’s about a nice shower together when we get back?” Steve asks her, loud enough that only she hears. She blushes uncontrollably for a moment, finding his hand on her hip. She’s surprised Steve asked her this out loud, despite how quietly. The whole ride over, he had not paid attention to her in any romantic way. In a way, Leanna appreciated it, because it meant that he was treating her just like everyone else on the team. Leanna blushes, nodding. He kisses her forehead a moment.

In Steve’s shower, she can’t help thinking about what she’d been pondering on the jet. And Steve touching her after they’d cleaned their bodies pulls her out of her mind. Steve starts to kiss her neck, leaning her up against the shower wall where he picks her up and she gasps. When she’s not really responding to his touch, he pauses, letting her down.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Did you ask Thor to babysit me?” Leanna blurts, unable to stop thinking about it.

“What do you mean?”

She sighs impatiently as the same expression falls over Steve’s face as had done when she told him that he’d sent agent Claire to keep her busy.

“Steve, you’re a horrible liar,” she says, reaching for the shower door. He sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says, grabbing her waist, guiding her further into the shower. He starts kissing her neck.

“Steve… _Steve_ ,” she gasps without sound when he sucks hard on her neck, “I told you before that I don’t like to be treated like I’m helpless,” Leanna explains, growing weak under the sensation of his full lips on her skin.

“…I didn’t mean for it to feel like that,” he says, “You haven’t seen action in a while. It’s not like I didn’t pair off everyone else. And you did well today, Le. I’m proud of you…Come on, sweetie. It’s been a hard day. Let’s just relax, huh? Come here.”

Leanna stops his hand from moving south of her navel. He massages her hips instead.

“Steve…did you hear me…?”

He pulls his strong arms around her.

“I heard you, baby,” he exhales. He doesn’t stop touching her.

“ _Steve._ ”

“Leanna,” he says, with some agitation.

“I’m not in the mood,” she explains, continuing out of the shower and grabbing her towel, leaving the Captain in there with his eyes closed, face to the water, looking frustrated that she’d figured him out again. Leanna doesn’t bother to put on her fresh clothes before she starts out of Steve’s quarters, closing the door rather hard. She nearly bumps into Bucky, whose eyes are wide with surprise to see her dripping wet in her towel so suddenly. It’s even more awkward when Sam and Clint follow suit, and she doesn’t wait to glimpse their expressions before hurrying to her room. She already knows that Bucky had read the angry expression on her face. One of the guys clears their throat as she rushes to her room and closes the door. She only hopes that no one mentions the awkward interaction later on.

Avoiding Steve has become harder to do, and so when Leanna gazes up at the stars, she clutches her coat around herself a little bit tighter. She hasn’t even responded to Natasha’s texts, asking her what she’s up to. Part of her is certain that perhaps Steve asked Natasha to text her and find out where she is. The sound of the door to the roof opening startles Leanna. She whips around to find Bucky looking as surprised as she is. He pauses there for a handful of seconds, as if trying to decide whether he should continue or go back inside. When Leanna stops staring back at him, he makes up his mind. He doesn’t stand too close to her, however.

“I just wanted some air and to get away from everyone for a little bit,” she says, shrugging.

“Yeah. It can get noisy. I understand that,” Bucky explains. She can tell that his blue eyes are scanning her. She can feel the question coming.

“I don’t mean to pry, but are you alright? You looked pretty upset when you left Steve’s, uh…room earlier,” Bucky asks. He starts to speak more slowly as he asks this, trying to gauge Leanna’s reaction. She had closed her eyes.

“I just…you seem like you’re always upset when you leave him,” Bucky explains.

She sighs, looking disappointed.

“Why are you constantly so concerned about me?” Leanna asks. Bucky’s heart skips a beat, “You barely know me.”

To his relief, she smiles slightly, without teeth.

“Well, I…I know that you’re a great person. And I hate to see you get hurt.”

And like that, Bucky has a flashback. It’s his turn to close his eyes. He’s telling Leanna that he’d hate to see her get hurt when he had personally hurt her plenty. He thought that maybe she was uncomfortable being around him, and he couldn’t have blamed her for that, so he is surprised when he opens his eyes to find that she’s still there.

“Steve would never hurt me. At least not intentionally,” Leanna sighs.

Bucky tilts his head to the side, “What do you mean by that?”

“N-nothing,” she says. He can tell she’s upset regardless of how she tries to hide it.

“I don’t know much about what happened with you getting on the team again, I just know that Steve said he had to tell you some things that maybe you didn’t wanna hear.”

“It had to do with you, okay?” Leanna admits, “The whole reason Steve took me off the team was because I went into the basement to—” she pauses, looking away from him, “I tried to hurt you. While you were still out of your mind. I think Steve’s still pissed about that. He wouldn’t let me forget when we talked about me being in the field again.”

Bucky cocks his eyebrows, “You tried to kill me?”

“I’m sorry!”

“No, don’t be. I wish you’d succeeded.”

He leans against the railing now, looking out into the night in a devastated way that actually begins to break Leanna’s heart.

“Don’t…don’t say that.”

“Well, I meant it,” Bucky mutters, pulling on his metallic thumb distractedly a moment.

There’s silence for a while until she speaks again.

“I don’t blame you,” she says, “It…it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t my fault, either. You weren’t in control.”

Bucky looks at her with more surprise. He was wondering whether he would ever get closure with her. Perhaps it’s why he always finds the time to try to talk to her one on one.

“If I were you, I would still blame me…Leanna, I did unforgivable things to you. Things I can remember doing. There were moments where I was…so lucid. I could have stopped. I could have tried to save us both. And I didn’t.” he looks her dead in the eyes, “I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry.”

She stares out into the night then and they just stand there in silence a while. Leanna’s phone vibrates and she sighs in irritation. She frantically texts Steve back that she’s fine, not bothering to tell him where she is. Bucky is looking at her as she does so, unable to ignore the expression on her face.

“Look, doll, if Steve isn’t treating you right, you should just say so. I’ll set him straight.”

She looks at him rather shyly before looking away.

“I know he did _something_ to upset you.”

“I appreciate your concern, but I’d rather you please not…I don’t want to talk about Steve.”

Bucky shrugs. She can’t remember him having called her “doll” before. Did he ever?

“That’s okay. I’m sorry,” Bucky apologizes. But then Leanna bursts and continues to talk about it.

“He didn’t exactly outright admit it, but he paired everyone up just so that I would have a babysitter on that mission we had. I’m so _sick_ of him doing things like that! It’s like he doesn’t _trust_ me,” Leanna explains angrily. Bucky frowns.

“Well, then I think you should tell him that.”

“I don’t know. I feel like…maybe I should just suck it up and not say anything. I don’t want him to take me off the team again.”

“He would do that if you told him you don’t like being treated like a child? If you asked me, I would say that’s abusive,” Bucky admits. Leanna deflates a little bit, shifting in her coat. She finally looks at Bucky again.

“Aren’t you freezing?” she asks, realizing that he’s only in a formfitting long-sleeved shirt and jeans. He shrugs.

“I run hot.”

Leanna smiles. She’s surprised at how comfortable she feels. A few weeks ago, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to be around Bucky again and not feel uncomfortable. Seeing that he’s truly himself again, she knows that the real Bucky isn’t a threat to her. If anything, he’s very sweet. He seemed to want to be sure that the people around him were happy. It made her sad to hear him say that he wished she had succeeded in trying to kill him. If she had, he wouldn’t be standing there now to comfort her. When it starts to rain, Leanna and Bucky turn around at the same time. He jogs to the door to open it for her. She thanks him before ducking into the warmth of the building. Bucky secures the door before following her down the stairs.

As if the timing was meant to be so, Steve is standing not far from the stairwell, facing Leanna as she walks down it, Bucky not far behind her. He glances between her and Bucky repeatedly, realizing that they must be coming from the same place. He looks at Leanna with relief. In her head, Leanna wonders briefly whether Steve had sent Bucky to find her, but she doubts that, as he seemed more interested in keeping their paths from crossing. He seemed to be convinced that Leanna still wasn’t exactly comfortable around Bucky. As she walks past him, he sighs.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky says, and Leanna walks out of earshot, hoping that everything she said to Bucky was in confidence. She couldn’t handle her relationship being even more complicated if Bucky were to tell Steve everything she said. She wanders to her room to lie down. She hadn’t realized how long she’d been up. She falls asleep before she hears Steve knocking, but wakes to find his arms around her at 3 in the morning. She wonders how long he has been cuddling her, because there’s a damp spot on her back between their bodies where the heat has become overwhelming. It’s almost impossible for her to inch out of his grasp, and as she gazes down at him, he looks to be having a bad dream. Leanna lightly brushes the hair out of the Captain’s face before sneaking out of her room to go relieve herself.

On her way back to her room, she reasons that she’s still a bit pissed off with Steve, and doesn’t want to fall into his death grip again as he sleeps, so she wanders the facility for a while, pausing in the kitchen for a drink of water. She strays down to the recreation area, pausing upon hearing what sounds like a woman groaning. She readies herself for the possibility of danger, but when she peers around the corner, all she sees is two naked bodies entangled on one of the benches where the guys like to lift weights. It doesn’t take long before Leanna can make out the back of Bucky’s head, his hips pounding away furiously between a pair of pale legs. A flash of red hair tells her it’s Natasha he’s fucking. If Leanna didn’t know any better, she would have said it looked like he was trying to kill her, but her dirty utterances make it clear that what’s happening is consensual. Natasha’s hands dig into Bucky’s lower back and Leanna walks away as quietly and quickly as possible, wishing she hadn’t seen what she just saw.

When Leanna returns to her room, Steve is sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes. He blinks over at her sleepily.

“Are you okay?” he asks immediately, “I woke up and you were gone,” he explains, his voice full of exhaustion. Leanna nods, pulling her shirt off.

“Just got too hot,” she explains, crawling back into bed, but she lies practically at the edge, as far away from Steve as possible. She feels the bed shift as he moves a little bit closer to her, and she can feel his eyes on her. His hand gently rests on her hip. He wants to ask her whether she and Bucky were talking earlier, she can feel it, but he keeps his mouth shut.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to take my sick ass to bed. Love triangle...

“Are you okay?” Steve asks as Leanna continues to adjust to the sunlight. She finds that he is on his side looking at her. She can’t help feeling that he’s one of the most beautiful sights to wake up to. She nods.

“Where did you go last night?” he asks.

“What?”

“We sort of had a fight, remember? You came back later, down the stairs.”

Leanna’s heart skips a beat.

“I just needed air. I was outside,” she explains, turning on her back, not wanting to look Steve in the eyes anymore.

“On the roof?” he adds, sitting up on an elbow. He sighs when Leanna doesn’t answer him.

“You can’t still be upset with me,” he says in disbelief, “I _told_ you—”

“It doesn’t matter, Steve! Just stop!” Leanna exclaims. Her voice is much louder than she’d intended it to be. He’s looking at her with widened eyes now. She closes hers, feeling the bed shift more as he sits up, leaning against the wall. When she looks at him again, he’s looking ahead with a frustrated expression on his face.

“S-Steve…I’m sorry,” she says quietly. He doesn’t look at her.

“I didn’t mean to yell.”

She doesn’t like the way that things are between them now. It hurts because she loves the Captain but doesn’t want him to always act as though she’s so fragile. The mission had really pissed her off and she wasn’t getting over it as quickly as she hoped she would.

“I’m going to give you some space,” Steve states, still not looking at her.

“Steve,” Leanna sighs. He walks out of her door, closing it gently behind himself. She shakes her head, hating that the day has started with her and Steve being on bad terms. She wonders how long it will last as she prepares for the day. She doesn’t see Steve at breakfast or lunch and starts to wonder whether he left the facility. It was awkward to Leanna to watch Bucky blush bright red around the neck as Natasha hands him the coffee pot. She barely looks at him, flipping through the paper as he takes the pot from her. She finds Bucky looking at her next, and she isn’t surprised that he looks like he wants to ask her what’s wrong. He doesn’t bother to in front of everyone else.

Leanna stuffs the rest of her sandwich in her mouth before walking down the hall to try and find the Captain. She doesn’t find him in her room, so she knocks on his door. When there’s no answer, she turns the handle, half assuming that the door will be locked. To her surprise, it’s open. But she finds the room empty. She sighs, walking into the bathroom to double check, wondering where Steve could have gone. She starts to realize that maybe this is exactly how he felt when she walked away from him the previous night, leaving him to himself. When she starts for the door to Steve’s bedroom, she’s shocked to find Bucky standing in the doorway.

“Uh, door was open,” he explains, taking a step back out into the hallway. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought that Bucky followed her from the kitchen. He moves completely out of her way.

“If you’re looking for Steve, he told me he was going for a drive,” Bucky explains, “He didn’t say where to.” She nods, glad that she knows something now. But she can’t help feeling like Bucky is constantly watching her, trying to talk to her.

“Hey, did you tell him how you feel?” Bucky asks before she can walk away.

“I didn’t really get a chance to. I sort of…yelled at him. First thing this morning…why am I telling you this?” Leanna turns away from Bucky, but she doesn’t walk away.

“I didn’t mean to pry. Steve’s my best friend. I guess I just care that things are good between him and his girl,” Bucky explains. Leanna feels herself blushing and is thankful that Bucky can’t see her face.

“I would never do all these things that upset you if you were mine,” he adds. And she turns around, wondering whether Bucky realizes how inappropriate what he’d said really is. He’s looking at her with twinkles in his eyes that Leanna doesn’t think should be there. He abruptly clears his throat and glances away.

“You and Nat,” Leanna says quietly, “I think it’s cute.”

And she walks away after briefly catching an embarrassed expression on his face. Leanna makes her way out of the facility and paces far across the lawn, dialing Steve’s number. She gets his voicemail. She sighs.

“Steve…I’m _sorry_ ,” she says, meaning it, “I…you didn’t have to leave. I realize that I’ve not been very easy to deal with…I don’t mean to be. I’ve just been through a lot,” she says, her voice breaking, “I know that you care about me—that’s all. And I want you to know that I appreciate it…I really do. Please come back…” She finds herself feeling more lost after hanging up. She waits outside for an hour and still Steve hasn’t returned. She figures she must have ruined it. Maybe Steve decided that he wasn’t going to tolerate her being so angry all the time. He shouldn’t have to.

She starts across the lawn again and sits there, still no answer from Steve. She can’t help but start to cry, pulling her knees to her chest. She doesn’t want to ruin things with the Captain. They have been good for the most part. He had been by her side at all times to make sure she felt safe. She can count on one hand the number of people who have made her feel this way in her entire life. She doesn’t even hear anyone approaching her until a warm hand at her back causes her to jump. She is immediately defensive, entering attack mode, until Steve’s brawny arms have her cradled and she’s looking up at him with shock. He looks as surprised as she had been. She still couldn’t tolerate being handled without warning.

“I’m sorry,” Steve apologizes immediately, “It’s just me,” he explains, giving her a reassuring squeeze. She feels badly for having attempted to tear into his skin with her nails.

“Hey,” he says comfortingly, realizing she’d been crying, “I just needed to clear my head, sweetie. I got your message.”

Steve’s kisses on her forehead are the most relieving thing she has felt in a while. He just sits in the grass, holding her. She couldn’t even speak. There was no need for her to. From the rooftop, Bucky watches the entire encounter. He could see, even from this far away, that Steve had startled Leanna. She’d tried to physically fight him off initially, until she saw his face. Bucky sighs, taking a long drag of the blunt that isn’t doing anything to alter his mood. Natasha takes it from between his lips and does a little bit more.

“He loves her _so_ much. I’ve never seen him like that,” Natasha explains. Bucky sighs.

“That was a weird sigh…Why’d you sigh like that?” she asks.

“You’re high, Romanoff,” Bucky explains with a sly grin.

The redhead laughs.

“Why are we spying on them?” he asks.

“We’re not. I just came out here to get high and you showed up.”

“And _now_ we’re spying on them,” Bucky explains, pulling the blunt from between Natasha’s lips.

“I think that’s enough for you. You’re getting paranoid.”

He extinguishes it and Natasha snatches it and pockets it.

“You’re into her, I can tell.”

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“It’s not hard to see. You’re always looking at her.”

“I guess I just feel guilty. I wish I could make her happy,” Bucky explains.

“Why? Because you raped her? I can’t imagine that’s something she’ll ever really get over.”

The word is like a stab in Bucky’s chest.

“You can’t blame yourself, Barnes. You were brainwashed.”

He knew that this thing going on between him and Natasha had nothing to do with love. They were both just horny and it was convenient. He wasn’t in love with Natasha.

“I mean…I guess I sorta get it. She’s technically your wife. That whole cult wedding thing was pretty fucked up,” Natasha explains.

“Leanna makes Steve happy, and I’m glad for that.”

He glances at Natasha once she’s silent, only to find that she’s quiet because she’s trying to re-ignite her weed. He stares over at Steve and Leanna again, wishing he knew what they might be saying to each other. He reasons that she wouldn’t have tried to fight him off the way she did when he came up behind her if it weren’t for him. The guilt is palpable and Bucky wishes that the serum didn’t prevent most drugs from working on him. He wonders how much he would have to smoke to feel something, realizing that Natasha doesn’t have enough for him.

Leanna follows Steve’s lead as he leads her back into the building, in from the cold. He had told her that her hands were freezing and asked her how long she was out there waiting for him. He opens his bedroom door for her and pulls one of his sweaters out of his closet to hand to her. She’d only had on a pullover while she was outside. She gravitates towards the bed and sits there with a sigh before lying down. Steve follows suit. It isn’t long before things are heated and Steve’s sweater is on the floor. She doesn’t feel so cold anymore as Steve slips between her thighs beneath the quilt. She finds it a little uncomfortable when he slips inside of her. She’s unable to stop thinking about what Bucky had said to her the previous night. She didn’t want to keep fighting with Steve, so she didn’t bother to get into it again when he came and found her on the lawn. She would just repress things if it meant keeping from fighting with Steve. She also thought about what Bucky said to her in the hall earlier, how wrong it was. Yet somehow, it made her heart flutter. She couldn’t tell Steve about that. It might hurt him. She couldn’t tell if Bucky was just being very sweet or if perhaps, he liked her in more than a friendly way.

“Leanna?” Steve asks, pausing. She gazes up at him where he stopped. He grips her knees, which are clinging to him tightly, slightly impeding his thrusting. She hadn’t realized she did this while getting lost in her mind. She stops clinging to him so tightly and parts her legs further. Steve cradles her head in both his hands. He starts up again, but very gently now.

“Was I hurting you?” he asks with concern. Leanna shakes her head, lying.

“I’m sorry I snuck up on you. I didn’t mean to,” he explains, believing he’d merely made her uncomfortable moments prior. She passes a hand down his chest appreciatively. She’s much too quiet now and it begins to concern Steve. He worries that maybe she still gets flashbacks of what happened. He wishes he would have remembered not to come up behind her. For some reason, he constantly forgets. She seems somewhat distracted, closing her eyes and gripping his shoulders. Leanna can’t get Bucky out of her head. She pulls Steve down harder between her legs, goading him to speed up. He acquiesces and she starts to moan with anticipation. When Leanna opens her eyes at the peak of her orgasm, she swears it’s Bucky for a moment, hovering atop her, moaning. Why was this happening at all? Was it just trauma? She closes her eyes, waiting for Steve to get off her. And when he lies beside her, she sees him again and sighs.

**Author's Note:**

> I write under a different name, but some people I know are aware of that name. I've created an alternate account on which to share my darker, more morbid content without the fear of judgment by people I know. A lot of this incorporates non-consensual fantasies. Read at your own risk.


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